Sorting tree with a materialized path?

Question

I have a tree structure in a table and it uses materialized paths to allow me to find children quickly. However, I also need to sort the results depth-first, as one would expect with threaded forum replies.

 id | parent_id | matpath |          created           
----+-----------+---------+----------------------------
  2 |         1 | 1       | 2010-05-08 15:18:37.987544
  3 |         1 | 1       | 2010-05-08 17:38:14.125377
  4 |         1 | 1       | 2010-05-08 17:38:57.26743
  5 |         1 | 1       | 2010-05-08 17:43:28.211708
  7 |         1 | 1       | 2010-05-08 18:18:11.849735
  6 |         2 | 1.2     | 2010-05-08 17:50:43.288759
  9 |         5 | 1.5     | 2010-05-09 14:02:43.818646
  8 |         6 | 1.2.6   | 2010-05-09 14:01:17.632695

So the final results should actually be sorted like this:

 id | parent_id | matpath |          created
----+-----------+---------+----------------------------
  2 |         1 | 1       | 2010-05-08 15:18:37.987544
  6 |         2 | 1.2     | 2010-05-08 17:50:43.288759
  8 |         6 | 1.2.6   | 2010-05-09 14:01:17.632695
  3 |         1 | 1       | 2010-05-08 17:38:14.125377
  4 |         1 | 1       | 2010-05-08 17:38:57.26743
  5 |         1 | 1       | 2010-05-08 17:43:28.211708
  9 |         5 | 1.5     | 2010-05-09 14:02:43.818646
  7 |         1 | 1       | 2010-05-08 18:18:11.849735

How would I work that out? Can I do that in straight SQL (this is PostgreSQL 8.4) or should additional information be added to this table?

Update: trying to explain sort criteria better.

Imagine that id '1' is the root post to a forum and everything with a 'matpath' beginning with '1' is a child of that post. So ids 2 through 5 are direct replies to 1 and get matpaths of '1'. However, id 6 is a reply 2, not directly to 1, so it gets a matpath of 1.2. This means that for a threaded forum with proper nesting, with all ids shown in the tables, the structure of the forum would look like this, hence the ordering requirement:

* id 1 (root post)
    * id 2
        * id 6
            * id 8
    * id 3
    * id 4
    * id 5
        * id 9
    * id 7

Answer 1

I believe your materialized path is not right.

What logic do you get to sort things like this

1
1.2
1
1.5

Why is the second 1 not together with the first one?

If you had

1
1.2
2
2.5

This would be trivial.

EDIT: I have looked at your example and you are not storing materialized path of a row, but you are storing a materialized path of the parent row. Here's how the materialized path of the row actually should look like. Sorting directly on matpath would work if you would not have more than 9 branches if you stored it as:

 id | parent_id | matpath   |          created
----+-----------+-----------+----------------------------
  2 |         1 | 1.2       | 2010-05-08 15:18:37.987544
  6 |         2 | 1.2.6     | 2010-05-08 17:50:43.288759
  8 |         6 | 1.2.6.8   | 2010-05-09 14:01:17.632695
  3 |         1 | 1.3       | 2010-05-08 17:38:14.125377
  4 |         1 | 1.4       | 2010-05-08 17:38:57.26743
  5 |         1 | 1.5       | 2010-05-08 17:43:28.211708
  9 |         5 | 1.5.9     | 2010-05-09 14:02:43.818646
  7 |         1 | 1.7       | 2010-05-08 18:18:11.849735

otherwise (>9) you would have to turn the matpath into something like

001.002.006
001.002.006.008

that would support up to 999 branches.

Please note

• even the approach with 4 fixed digits, such as 0001.0002.0006 would give you a field that is shorter then in the accepted answer
• you could parse matpath an produce sorting value on the fly with a user function
• you could directly store matpath in this format (it has some other nice properties, too)