Problem with MySQL table

[Jay]

Hi everybody !

I am a newbie here. I hope somebody will help with my problem.
I am currently write a web-application that allow user to submit their
job application online.

In the job application, there is a section that ask the user to select
the skills that apply to them. Each skill have an experience level
associated with it. Below is example of the skills section:

=============== =============== ======
SKILLS
-----
( 0 = no experience, 1 = beginner, 2 = intermediate, 3 = advanced )

+ HTML ----> select ( 0 OR 1 OR 2 OR 3)
+ jAVASCRIPT ----> select ( 0 OR 1 OR 2 OR 3)
+ jAVA ----> select ( 0 OR 1 OR 2 OR 3)
+ C++ ----> select ( 0 OR 1 OR 2 OR 3)

........ETC.... ......the list goes on and on.......... ( more than 20
skills)

=============== =============== =======

My problem is this:

1. The list of skills keeps growing over time. I don't know how I would
design a MySQL database table that have number of fields changing over
time.

2. My current solution is to create a table that have the following
columns:

+ column 1 (first column) store userID (primary).
+ column 2 store all the skills (at beginning level - number 1 in
the list above) and separated by commna.
+ column 3 store all the skills (at intermediate level - number 2 in
the list above) and separated by commna.
+ column 4 store all the skills (at advanced level - number 3 in the
list above) and separated by commna.

All these skills should be searchable by the admin users of this
website.

Is there a better solution to this problem?

Thank you in advance,

Jay Hana

[Tim Van Wassenhove]

Re: Problem with MySQL table

On 2005-06-25, Jay <goofyfish@gmai l.com> wrote:[color=blue]
> + column 1 (first column) store userID (primary).
> + column 2 store all the skills (at beginning level - number 1 in
> the list above) and separated by commna.
> + column 3 store all the skills (at intermediate level - number 2 in
> the list above) and separated by commna.
> + column 4 store all the skills (at advanced level - number 3 in the
> list above) and separated by commna.[/color]

You need a book/tutorial/whatever on database normalization.

I probably would end up with the following

table users (user_id, surname, ...)
table skills (skill_id, description)
table userskills (user_id, skill_id, level)


--
Met vriendelijke groeten,
Tim Van Wassenhove <http://timvw.madoka.be >