Question

I have a table containing stages and sub-stages of certain projects, and a table with specific tasks and estimated costs.
I need some way to aggregate each level (stages/sub-stages), to see how much it costs, but to do it at a minimum performance cost.

To illustrate this, I will use the following data structure:

CREATE TABLE stage
(
    id int not null,
    fk_parent int
)

CREATE TABLE task
(
    id int not null,
    fk_stage int not null,
    cost decimal(18,2) not null default 0
)

with the following data:

==stage==
id  fk_parent
1   null
2   1
3   1

==task==
id  fk_stage  cost
1   2         100
1   2         200
1   3         600

I want to obtain a table containing the total costs on each branch. Something like this:

Stage ID      Total Cost
1             900
2             300
3             600

But, I also want it to be productive. I don’t want to end up with extremely bad solutions like The worst algorithm in the world. I mean this is the case. In case I’ll request the data for all the items in the stage table, with the total costs, each total cost will be evaluated D times, where D is the depth in the tree (level) at which it is situated. I am afraid I’ll hit extremely low performances at large amounts of data with a lot of levels.

SO,

I decided to do something which made me ask this question here.
I decided to add 2 more columns to the stage table, for caching.

...
calculated_cost decimal(18,2),
date_calculated_cost datetime
...

So what I wanted to do is pass another variable within the code, a datetime value which equals to the time when this process was started (pretty much unique). That way, if the stage row already has a date_calculated_cost which equals to the one I’m carrying, I don’t bother calculating it again, and just return the calculated_cost value.

I couldn’t do it with Functions (updates are needed to the stage table, once costs are calculated)
I couldn’t do it with Procedures (recursion within running cursors is a no-go)
I am not sure temporary tables are suitable because it wouldn’t allow concurrent requests to the same procedure (which are least likely, but anyway I want to do it the right way)
I couldn’t figure out other ways.

I am not expecting a definite answer to my question, but I will reward any good idea, and the best will be chosen as the answer.

Answer 1

1. A way to query the tables to get the aggregated cost.

1. Calculate the cost for each stage.
2. Use a recursive CTE to get the level for each stage.
3. Store the result in a temp table.
4. Add a couple of indexes to the temp table.
5. Update the cost in the temp table in a loop for each level

The first three steps is combined to one statement. It might be good for performance to do the first calculation, cteCost, to a temp table of it’s own and use that temp table in the recursive cteLevel.

;with cteCost as
(
  select s.id,
         s.fk_parent,
         isnull(sum(t.cost), 0) as cost
  from stage as s
    left outer join task as t
      on s.id = t.fk_stage
  group by s.id, s.fk_parent
),
cteLevel as
(
  select cc.id,
         cc.fk_parent,
         cc.cost,
         1 as lvl
  from cteCost as cc
  where cc.fk_parent is null
  union all
  select cc.id,
         cc.fk_parent,
         cc.cost,
         lvl+1
  from cteCost as cc
    inner join cteLevel as cl
      on cc.fk_parent = cl.id       
)
select *
into #task
from cteLevel

create clustered index IX_id on #task (id)
create index IX_lvl on #task (lvl, fk_parent)

declare @lvl  int
select @lvl = max(lvl)
from #task

while @lvl > 0
begin

  update T1 set
    T1.cost = T1.cost + T2.cost
  from #task as T1
    inner join (select fk_parent, sum(cost) as cost
                from #task
                where lvl = @lvl
                group by fk_parent) as T2
      on T1.id = T2.fk_parent

  set @lvl = @lvl - 1
end

select id as [Stage ID],
       cost as [Total Cost] 
from #task

drop table #task

2. A trigger on table task that maintains a calculated_cost field in stage.

create trigger tr_task 
on task 
after insert, update, delete
as
  -- Table to hold the updates
  declare @T table
  (
    id int not null, 
    cost decimal(18,2) not null default 0
  )

  -- Get the updates from inserted and deleted tables
  insert into @T (id, cost)
  select fk_stage, sum(cost)
  from (
          select fk_stage, cost
          from inserted
          union all
          select fk_stage, -cost
          from deleted
       ) as T   
  group by fk_stage

  declare @id int
  select @id = min(id)
  from @T

  -- For each updated row
  while @id is not null
  begin

    -- Recursive update of stage
    with cte as 
    (
      select s.id,
             s.fk_parent
      from stage as s
      where id = @id
      union all
      select s.id,
             s.fk_parent
      from stage as s
        inner join cte as c
          on s.id = c.fk_parent    
    )
    update s set
      calculated_cost = s.calculated_cost + t.cost 
    from stage as s
      inner join cte as c
        on s.id = c.id
      cross apply (select cost
                   from @T
                   where id = @id) as t   

    -- Get the next id
    select @id = min(id)
    from @T
    where id > @id
  end