Joseph and Tony, There is quite an elegant solution to what is one of the more complex data structures you will encounter in a relational DB. Joe Celko has described the "nested set model" which uses relational DB concepts to describe the structure of a tree (which is what you have in this case, one parent leads to 1..N childrend which each have 1..N children ad infinitum) in his book SQL for Smarties. I won't describe it here, it would take me too long to type it out. Instead, look at this article written by Joe himself. http://www.intelligententerprise.com/001020/celko.shtml Is it confusing? Yes! At first it took me a few hours to understand the model and how it works. Many of my coworkers were confounded by this representation when I first presented it to them. However, it works in terms of ease of use and performance once you understand the basic premise. I actually think this is one of the coolest DB tricks I have seen! Hope that helps! -dhs -- Dean H. Saxe [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.FullFrontalNerdity.com/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
