mysql like query exclude numbers - php

Question

I have a small problem with a php mysql query, I am looking for help.
I have a family tree table, where I am storing for each person his/her ancestors id separated by a comma. like so
id ancestors
10 1,3,4,5
So the person of id 10 is fathered by id 5 who is fathered by id 4 who is fathered by 3 etc...
Now I wish to select all the people who have id x in their ancestors, so the query will be something like:
select * from people where ancestors like '%x%'
Now this would work fine except, if id x is lets say 2, and a record has an ancestor id 32, this like query will retrieve 32 because 32 contains 2. And if I use '%,x,%' (include commas) the query will ignore the records whose ancestor x is on either edge(left or right) of the column. It will also ignore the records whose x is the only ancestor since no commas are present.
So in short, I need a like query that looks up an expression that either is surrounded by commas or not surrounded by anything. Or a query that gets the regular expression provided that no numbers are around. And I need it as efficient as possible (I suck at writing regular expressions)
Thank you.
Edit: Okay guys, help me come up with a better schema.

Answer 1

You are not storing your data in a proper way. Anyway, if you still want to use this schema you should use FIND_IN_SET instead of LIKE to avoid undesired results.
SELECT *
FROM mytable
WHERE FIND_IN_SET(2, ancestors) <> 0

Answer 2

You should consider redesigning your database structure. Add new table "ancestors" to database with columns:
id id_person ancestor
1 10 1
2 10 3
3 10 4
After -- use JOIN query with "WHERE IN" to choose right rows.

Answer 3

You're having this issue because of wrong design of database.First DBMS based db's aren't meant for this kind of data,graph based db's are more likely to fit for this kind of solution.
if it contain small amount of data you could use mysql but still the design is still wrong,if you only care about their 'father' then just add a column to person (or what ever you call it) table. if its null - has no father/unknown otherwise - contains (int) of his parent.
In case you need more then just 'father' relationship you could use a pivot table to contain two persons relationship but thats not a simple task to do.

Answer 4

There are a few established ways of storing hierarchical data in RDBMS. I've found this slideshow to be very helpful in the past:
Models for Hierarchical Design
Since the data deals with ancestry - and therefore you wouldn't expect it to change that often - a closure table could fit the bill.
Whatever model you choose, be sure to look around and see if someone else has already implemented it.

Answer 5

You could store your values as a JSON Array
id | ancestors
10 | {"1","3","4","5"}
and then query as follows:
$query = 'select * from people where ancestors like \'%"x"%\'';
Better is of course using a mapping table for your many-to-many relation

Answer 6

You can do this with regexp:
SELECT * FROM mytable WHERE name REGEXP ',?(x),?'
where x is your searched value

Answer 7

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS my_table;
CREATE TABLE my_table
(id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY
,ancestors VARCHAR(250) NOT NULL
);
INSERT INTO my_table VALUES(10,',1,3,4,5');
SELECT *
FROM my_table
WHERE CONCAT(ancestors,',') LIKE '%,5,%';
+----+-----------+
| id | ancestors |
+----+-----------+
| 10 | ,1,3,4,5 |
+----+-----------+
SELECT *
FROM my_table
WHERE CONCAT(ancestors,',') LIKE '%,4,%';
+----+-----------+
| id | ancestors |
+----+-----------+
| 10 | ,1,3,4,5 |
+----+-----------+