I don't agree with the XML anaology.  As I understand it, recursion in  SQL
is referring to self-referencing tables that create a parent/child
relationship.  This generally does not apply to XML since XML is
hierarchical but usually not recursive (i.e., the children are not the same
elements as the parents).  Certainly it's possible and does happen, but for
the most part the relationship between XML elements can be easily mapped to
relational tables and does not require recursive SQL to process.

Oracle has had recursive SQL support for a while and it's very helpful when
appropriately used.  MSSQL adds hierarchical data types in 2008 to support
similar functionality.

HTH,

Sam


On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 11:32 AM, Nicolas Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 09:24:06AM -0700, Dennis Cote wrote:
> > As Nicolas said, SQL:1999 defines a standard method of doing this. It
> > uses a WITH RECURSIVE clause as a prefix to a SELECT. It hasn't been
> > widely implemented, but I believe that IBM's DB2 supports this
> mechanism.
>
> Ah, good to know.  Would there be interest in supporting that in SQLite?
> I think it'd be very useful (particularly given the populatiry of XML).
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