Well Aseem,
It looks like you have some work cut out for you!
What your trying to do is somewhat complicated but very doable. Im not sure
if this matches what you need to do, but if not hopefully it will inspire
some ideas.
I think how id go about doing this would be storing these tree structures in
a table.
The table would have the columns:
UserID - a unique id identifying the person
Parent - the unique id of the person who refered this person
Lets say you are the first person in...the top of the tree. Lets also say
your UserID was 1 for simplicity.
There would be 1 row in the table (Parent is empty (NULL))
UserID Parent
1
Then lets say you refered me and my UserID is 2. The table would then look
like this:
UserID Parent
1
2 1
Then lets say I refered my friend who is UserID 3.
UserID Parent
1
2 1
3 2
Then lets say you refered UserID 4 and 5 and I refered UserID 6.
UserID Parent
1
2 1
3 2
4 1
5 1
6 2
So, at the moment, if we wanted to know who UserID 1 refered (thats you),
we:
select UserID from TreeTable where Parent=1
and we get UserID 2,4,5 which are the people you refered. Pretty cool?
Now lets say UserID 3 refered someone and made some money.
To figure out the parent of UserID 3 to figure out who to pay you do similar
sql:
select Parent from TreeTable where UserID=3
which results in 2. So UserID 2 gets whatever payment they should get.
Next we want to go to the next level up to pay that person to.
select Parent from TreeTable where UserID=2
which results in 1. So UserID 1 gets the payment they deserve.
Now we need to go up another level so...
select Parent from TreeTable where UserID=1
which results in NULL (or empty results). That means we hit the top of the
tree and should stop.
So...when someone refers someone, you use this method to walk up the tree 5
steps (or until you run out of parents), giving the people the proper cut of
the profit that they deserve.
Make sense?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Aseem Mal" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 1:51 PM
Subject: Witango-Talk: Multi-tier Referral Program
> Hi.
> I wish to develop a Multi-tier Referral Program system. The First person
> who starts the referral chain needs to be disconnected from the chain when
> it reaches the fifth-tier. At that point the Second person becomes the
> Primary. It goes on till the seventh tier.
> I am not sure how the referral code should be assigned and how to
> disconnect after level-five of the chain is reached.
> After being disconnected, the person stops reciving commissions.
> Any ideas will be appreciated. I am attaching a word doc that contains
> answers to all your questions.
> Still, Let me know if you have any questions.
> Thanks,
> Aseem Mal.
>
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