title: GROUP_CONCAT multiple columns as an array or explodable string
body: <p>Statement I came up with:</p>
  
  <pre><code>   SELECT p.user_id AS started_by,
            p.position,
            p.created AS started_time,
            GROUP_CONCAT(
              c.id,
              c.user_id,
              c.comment,
              c.created) AS comments
       FROM pointers AS p
       JOIN comments AS c
         ON p.id = c.pointer_id
      WHERE p.archive_id = 3
   GROUP BY p.id 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>It gets me:</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/urX3U.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
  
  <p>What happens is that GROUP_CONCAT() simply concatenates c.id . c.user_id c.comment and c.created. I cannot even explode that value in any meaningful way. (Notice how date and id are together as 1 string).</p>
  
  <p>I don't want to create separate query for comments. OR should I?</p>
  
  <p>IN any case, I need orderby c.created the comments, and have two delimiters. for example:</p>
  
  <pre><code>comments =&gt; 1,1,text this is!,2014-12-20 17:52:02;3,1,asasd,2014-12-20 20:46:40
  </code></pre>