What are the potential pitfalls of storing multiple values in a single field in a database, as seen in the forum thread?

Storing multiple values in a single field in a database can lead to data redundancy, difficulty in querying and updating specific values, and potential data integrity issues. It is recommended to normalize the database structure by creating separate tables for related data and using relationships to link them together. 

// Example of normalizing the database structure by creating separate tables

// Table for users
CREATE TABLE users (
    id INT PRIMARY KEY,
    username VARCHAR(50)
);

// Table for user roles
CREATE TABLE user_roles (
    id INT PRIMARY KEY,
    user_id INT,
    role VARCHAR(20),
    FOREIGN KEY (user_id) REFERENCES users(id)
);

Keywords

database design normalization data integrity SQL injection performance impact

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