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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-05T10:59:38+00:00

I’ve been given a SQL table that has a parent-child relationship that I’d like

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I’ve been given a SQL table that has a parent-child relationship that I’d like to present in a readable format.

The main columns involved are Drawer, Folder, Document. Each Drawer can have multiple folders associated to it, and each folder can have multiple documents associated to it. However, the Folder and Document are not listed in the same record.

This table contains item types, and a folder and document are both considered items. To associate them, the table assigns the itemnumber of the folder to the parentID in the document record.

For example:

DrawerID   ItemID    ParentID    Type    Name  
  1          1          0       Folder   Folder 1  
  1          2          0       Folder   Folder 2  
  1          3          0       Folder   Folder 3  
  1          4          0       Folder   Folder 4  
  1          5          1       Document Document A  
  1          6          1       Document Document B   
  1          7          1       Document Document C 
  1          8          2       Document Document A  
  1          9          3       Document Document A  
  1          10         3       Document Document B

What I’m looking for is an output similar to this:

Drawer 1
    Folder 1
        Document A
        Document B
        Document C
    Folder 2
        Document A
    Folder 3
        Document A
        Document B

The part that I’m stuck on is how to tie the ParentID to the ItemID. Would the best approach be some sort of union? recursive programming into a new table? I’m not a SQL person – I just cut and paste bits of queries, so please use little words 🙂

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    This query should work, tested OK in SQL Server on your data. Basically it’s creating two pseudo tables in the query to represent the Folder and Document entities then joining together on the parent relationship:

    SELECT Folder.DrawerID, Folder.FolderId, Folder.FolderName, Doc.DocumentId, Doc.DocumentName
    FROM 

    (Select DrawerId, ItemId AS FolderId, ParentId, [Name] AS FolderName FROM Drawers WHERE [Type] ='Folder') Folder,

    (Select DrawerId, ItemId AS DocumentId, ParentId, [Name] AS DocumentName FROM Drawers  WHERE [Type] ='Document') Doc

    WHERE Doc.ParentId = Folder.FolderId
    ORDER BY DrawerId, FolderName, DocumentName
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