> Essentially I am trying to establish a hierarchical structure > in a database in such a way one is not having to do loads of > recursive queries to return the path between one item and > another in the tree... is this even possible? > > One idea someone threw at me was XML.... well I understand > WDDX, but I don't understand the principles of using XML as > an actual database. Could this solve my problem?
Unfortunately, "use XML" isn't much of an answer. It's analogous to answering "how can I drive to the store" by saying "use gasoline". In fact, XML isn't especially useful for answering questions like this; it's not suited to modeling relational data, but is useful as a transport mechanism for denormalized data. There is a good, useful model for hierarchies in SQL that provides functionality beyond simply relating a parent and child. It's called the nested set model. There's information on it from Joe Celko, a highly respected database guy, here: http://www.intelligententerprise.com/001020/celko.shtml Better yet, there's an implementation of it by David Medinets here: http://www.codebits.com/ntm/ Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software http://www.figleaf.com/ voice: (202) 797-5496 fax: (202) 797-5444 ______________________________________________________________________ Get Your Own Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation � $99/Month � Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=coldfusionb FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
