Originally posted by Jeewhizz
True, but its easy to do this before you enter, otherwise it has to be truncated each time the page loads, and if you're alking 100's of hits, then its ading to server load
That's only a valid concern if your assumptions about the use of that MySQL statement in context of the application is equal to what BillL thought of. In other words, only when you read out something for presentational display. Also, can you make sure that the "column X" is not used in other contexts where the full string of it's fields is needed? I mean, why should one devise it to store such a content if only a part if it would be actually needed.
I *suspect* that BillL *might* use it in an insert that relies on values retrieved by [..] JOIN statements. If that's the case, go with wabirdmans suggestion. So it's up to you BillL to clarify your question.