Flags in a database rows, best practices

Question

I am asking this out of a curiosity. Basically my question is when you have a database which needs a row entry to have things which act like flags, what is the best practice

Answer 1

Came across this when I was pondering best way to store bitmask flags (similar to OP's original use of integers) in a database.

The other answers are all valid solutions, but I think its worth mentioning that you may not have to resign yourself to horrible query problems if you choose to store bitmasks directly in the database.

If you are working on an application that uses bitmasks and you really want the convenience of storing them in the database as one integer or byte column, go ahead and do that. Down the road, you can write yourself a little utility that will generate another table of flags (in whatever pattern of rows/columns you choose) from the bitmasks in your primary working table. You can then do ordinary SQL queries on that computed/derived table.

This way your application gets the convenience of only reading/writing the bitmask field/column. But you can still use SQL to really dive into your data if that becomes necessary at a later time.