mvppetlab(at)yahoo(dot)com (Chris) writes:
> My question is: is it possible to use pure SQL to return a result set
> that would make rendering a threaded view like the above really easy?
What you're really after is a tree structure. This is relatively easy
to do with Oracle's CONNECT BY or SQL99's WITH, neither of which we have
in Postgres (yet). I think in bog-standard SQL92 you can't readily do
it without adding some additional fields to the table.
I highly recommend you buy a copy of Joe Celko's "SQL For Smarties".
He has two whole chapters on different ways to handle trees in SQL.
regards, tom lane