Re: Processing Tables containing tree-like data

What is the frequency that this data is updated?

If the data is static (or if you can get away with running a cron job
every now and then), you can write a recursive pl/pgslq function to
get level information for each node on the tree and assign a specific
"incremental" node_id for each record. Due to the nature of the
recursive function, a node_id is assigned to the children of a
specific node instead of its siblings. You should end up with data as
illustrated below.

id info parent_id level node_id
1 Name1 Null 1 1
2 Name2 1 2 2
3 Name3 2 3 3
4 Name4 3 4 4
5 Name5 4 5 5
6 Name5 1 2 6
7 Name6 6 3 7
8 Name7 1 2 8

Then you can simply retrieve the children of node (N) on level (L)
with a single statement.

SELECT * FROM table WHERE node_id > N AND node_id < (SELECT node_id
FROM table WHERE level = L AND node_id > N ORDER BY node_id LIMIT 1
OFFSET 0);

Refrain from using MIN() as performance suffers unbelievably.

Hope this helps,

Burak

On 5/29/07, psql-novice(at)netzach(dot)co(dot)il <psql-novice(at)netzach(dot)co(dot)il> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I have a table which looks like this:
>
> id info parentid
> 0 <God> 0
> 1 Adam 0
> 2 Cain 1
> 3 Abel 1
> 4 Seth 1
> 5 Enosh 4
> ....
>
>
>
> I am looking for a fast and efficient way of finding ALL the descendents
> of any particular node, to unlimited depth.
>
> Is there a standard database trick for doing this efficiently ? Writing
> a recursive function would be extremely inefficient for repeated
> queries.
>
> Thanks,
>
>
> Netzach
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to
> choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not
> match
>