Sorting nested set by name while keep depth integrity

Question

I'm using the nested set model that'll later be used to build a sitemap for my web site. This is my table structure.

create table departments (
    id int identity(0, 1) primary key
    , lft int
    , rgt int
    , name nvarchar(60)
);

insert into departments (lft, rgt, name) values (1, 10, 'departments');
insert into departments (lft, rgt, name) values (2, 3, 'd');
insert into departments (lft, rgt, name) values (4, 9, 'a');
insert into departments (lft, rgt, name) values (5, 6, 'b');
insert into departments (lft, rgt, name) values (7, 8, 'c');

How can I sort by depth as well as name? I can do

select
    replicate('----', count(parent.name) - 1) + ' ' + node.name
    , count(parent.name) - 1 as depth
, node.lft
from
    departments node
    , departments parent
where
    node.lft between parent.lft and parent.rgt
group by
    node.name, node.lft
order by
    depth asc, node.name asc;

However, that does not match children with their parent for some reason.

department      lft     rgt
---------------------------
 departments    0       1
---- a        1        4
---- d        1        2
-------- b    2        5
-------- c    2        7

As you can see, department 'd' has department 'a's children!

Thank you.

Answer 1

The below will work with your example, although if a name contains the "-" character then it might break down. It might serve as a starting point though. This uses CTEs, which are specific to SQL Server I believe. If I think of a more generic ANSI SQL method, I'll post that as well.

;WITH Tree_Path AS (
    SELECT
        lft,
        rgt,
        name,
        CAST(name + '-' AS VARCHAR(MAX)) AS tree_path,
        1 AS depth
    FROM
        dbo.departments
    WHERE
        lft = 1
    UNION ALL
    SELECT
        c.lft,
        c.rgt,
        c.name,
        CAST(tp.tree_path + c.name + '-' AS VARCHAR(MAX)),
        tp.depth + 1
    FROM
        Tree_Path tp
    INNER JOIN dbo.departments AS c ON
        c.lft > tp.lft AND
        c.lft < tp.rgt AND
        NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM dbo.departments d WHERE d.lft < c.lft AND d.rgt > c.lft AND d.lft > tp.lft AND d.lft < tp.rgt))
SELECT
    REPLICATE('----', depth - 1) + name,
    depth - 1,
    lft
FROM
    Tree_Path
ORDER BY
    tree_path,
    name