Question

I am looking to return a query that shows exactly like this:

Root 1
–> Child 2
—–>Child 3
Root 2
–> Child 4
—->Child 5

So the query should return Root 1 as One row, —> Child 2 as another row. Assume n Levels, and “—>” format is placed for each child. Level is higher then “—->” increases.

My Table definition is

[NodeId, ParentId, Name, Level]

Answer 1

On SQL Server 2008 and above, you can use hierarchyId datatype to quickly achieve the desired sorting. You can use REPLICATE() to get the dashes.

;with cte as (
    select NodeId, ParentId, Name, 0 Level, '/' + cast(NodeId as varchar(max)) + '/' Hier
    from tbl1
    where ParentId is null
    union all
    select t.NodeId, t.ParentId, t.Name, Level+1, Hier + cast(t.NodeId as varchar(max)) + '/'
    from tbl1 t
    join cte c on t.ParentId = c.NodeId
)
select case when level=0
            then ''
            else replicate('-',level*2) + '>' end + Name
from cte
order by cast(Hier as hierarchyid);

SQL Fiddle

On earlier SQL Server 2005, you can emulate the hierarchyId sorting using zero-padded strings:

;with cte as (
    select NodeId, ParentId, Name, 0 Level, right(replicate('0',10)+cast(NodeId as varchar(max)),11) Hier
    from tbl1
    where ParentId is null
    union all
    select t.NodeId, t.ParentId, t.Name, Level+1, Hier + right(replicate('0',10)+cast(t.NodeId as varchar(max)),11)
    from tbl1 t
    join cte c on t.ParentId = c.NodeId
)
select case when level=0
            then ''
            else replicate('-',level*2) + '>' end + Name
from cte
order by Hier;