Question

Is it possible to create a “tree resolver” in SQL?

I have a table:

ID Name Parent
1  a
2  b    1
3  c    1
4  d    3

Now I want a SQL query that returns:

ID   PATH
1    /a
2    /a/b
3    /a/c
4    /a/c/d

Is this possible with SQL? It would make many things easier for me. Any help would really be appreciated!

Answer 1

Depending on what database server use, this functionality may be provided for you already. Otherwise you can create a function that call itself to return this information, or implement a Materialized Path solution.

Update:

For DB2 you can make use of Recursive Common Table Expressions.