Typically you wouldn't store a 'list' in a single column. It's a pain when you want to extract the individual elements using SQL only. Typically, you'd create a new table to hold the questions and relate them back to their parent poll.

So instead of having a single Table (say, tPoll) with columns such as:

PollID INT NOT NULL Primary Key Auto-Increment
Questions VARCHAR(?) NOT NULL
PollDate DATETIME
etc...

typically, you would have two tables (say, tPoll and tPollQuestion) with columns such as:

TABLE: tPoll:

PollID INT NOT NULL Primary Key Auto-Increment
PollDate DATE
etc... (other poll related attributes)

and

TABLE: tPollQuestion:

PollID (not sure of syntax in mysql to say foreign key back to tPoll.PollID)
QuestionID INT NOT NULL Auto-Increment
QuestionText VARCHAR(128)
QuestionOrder INT NOT NULL
etc... (other question related attributes)

[edited by: ZydoSEO at 8:01 pm (utc) on Jan. 18, 2008]

heed ZydoSEO, but you should be aware of the ENUM type [dev.mysql.com].

Thanks Zydo. I see what you are saying. Another question is, is let's say that I have a large database (50,000+ rows), would it still be wise to do it this way, even though it will create about 200,000+ rows in the questions table (estimating approximatly four questions per poll).

I know about the enum type, but if I'm not mistaken, doesn't that only let you insert one value into each field (which is limited to one of a number of predetermined values)?

Thanks!