In the product I work on we have some tree structures stored in SQL Server and use the technique mentioned above to store a node's hierarchy in the record. i.e.
tblTreeNode
TreeID = 1
TreeNodeID = 100
ParentTreeNodeID = 99
Hierarchy = ".33.59.99.100."
[...] (actual data payload for node)
Maintaining the the hierarchy is the tricky bit of course and makes use of triggers. But generating it on an insert/delete/move is never recursive, because the parent or child's hierarchy has all the information you need.
you can get all of node's descendants thusly:
SELECT * FROM tblNode WHERE Hierarchy LIKE '%.100.%'
Here's the insert trigger:
--Setup the top level if there is any
UPDATE T
SET T.TreeNodeHierarchy = '.' + CONVERT(nvarchar(10), T.TreeNodeID) + '.'
FROM tblTreeNode AS T
INNER JOIN inserted i ON T.TreeNodeID = i.TreeNodeID
WHERE (i.ParentTreeNodeID IS NULL) AND (i.TreeNodeHierarchy IS NULL)
WHILE EXISTS (SELECT * FROM tblTreeNode WHERE TreeNodeHierarchy IS NULL)
BEGIN
--Update those items that we have enough information to update - parent has text in Hierarchy
UPDATE CHILD
SET CHILD.TreeNodeHierarchy = PARENT.TreeNodeHierarchy + CONVERT(nvarchar(10),CHILD.TreeNodeID) + '.'
FROM tblTreeNode AS CHILD
INNER JOIN tblTreeNode AS PARENT ON CHILD.ParentTreeNodeID = PARENT.TreeNodeID
WHERE (CHILD.TreeNodeHierarchy IS NULL) AND (PARENT.TreeNodeHierarchy IS NOT NULL)
END
and here's the update trigger:
--Only want to do something if Parent IDs were changed
IF UPDATE(ParentTreeNodeID)
BEGIN
--Update the changed items to reflect their new parents
UPDATE CHILD
SET CHILD.TreeNodeHierarchy = CASE WHEN PARENT.TreeNodeID IS NULL THEN '.' + CONVERT(nvarchar,CHILD.TreeNodeID) + '.' ELSE PARENT.TreeNodeHierarchy + CONVERT(nvarchar, CHILD.TreeNodeID) + '.' END
FROM tblTreeNode AS CHILD
INNER JOIN inserted AS I ON CHILD.TreeNodeID = I.TreeNodeID
LEFT JOIN tblTreeNode AS PARENT ON CHILD.ParentTreeNodeID = PARENT.TreeNodeID
--Now update any sub items of the changed rows if any exist
IF EXISTS (
SELECT *
FROM tblTreeNode
INNER JOIN deleted ON tblTreeNode.ParentTreeNodeID = deleted.TreeNodeID
)
UPDATE CHILD
SET CHILD.TreeNodeHierarchy = NEWPARENT.TreeNodeHierarchy + RIGHT(CHILD.TreeNodeHierarchy, LEN(CHILD.TreeNodeHierarchy) - LEN(OLDPARENT.TreeNodeHierarchy))
FROM tblTreeNode AS CHILD
INNER JOIN deleted AS OLDPARENT ON CHILD.TreeNodeHierarchy LIKE (OLDPARENT.TreeNodeHierarchy + '%')
INNER JOIN tblTreeNode AS NEWPARENT ON OLDPARENT.TreeNodeID = NEWPARENT.TreeNodeID
END
one more bit, a check constraint to prevent a circular reference in tree nodes:
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[tblTreeNode] WITH NOCHECK ADD CONSTRAINT [CK_tblTreeNode_TreeNodeHierarchy] CHECK
((charindex(('.' + convert(nvarchar(10),[TreeNodeID]) + '.'),[TreeNodeHierarchy],(charindex(('.' + convert(nvarchar(10),[TreeNodeID]) + '.'),[TreeNodeHierarchy]) + 1)) = 0))
I would also recommend triggers to prevent more than one root node (null parent) per tree, and to keep related nodes from belonging to different TreeIDs (but those are a little more trivial than the above.)
You'll want to check for your particular case to see if this solution performs acceptably. Hope this helps!
