How to link a large number of items at one time in mysql and php?

Question

For example:

There are 10,000 items in a list and the user needs to be able to select a portion of these based on whatever criteria, and then put them into a group. So as the user, I filter the list of these 10,000 items based on whatever, hit select all and then click "Group".

I'm trying to come up with the most efficient method of linking these all together.

If I have item_table and group_table and then group_has_item, I'd effectively have to INSERT 1,000 rows at one time into the group_has_item table. Is there an efficient way to do this? Or is there a better schema? The only requirement is that these items have to be able to be tied to multiple groups at once.

Answer 1

If I have item_table and group_table and then group_has_item, I'd effectively have to INSERT 1,000 rows at one time into the group_has_item table. Is there an efficient way to do this?

Yes - what you describe is the proper way to associate the records.
It's called a many-to-many relationship, and uses a table for holding these relationships. Some call the table linking the two entities map, lookup, xref... I've forgotten some of the synonyms.