SQL "tree-like" query - most parent group

Question

I'm having some trouble doing a "tree-like" query (what do we call this?) in SQL.

Take a look at my diagram below (table and column names are in danish - sorry about that):

DB diagram http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/8721/44060572.jpg Using MSSQL Server 2005, the goal is to find the most parent group (Gruppe), for each customer (Kunde).

Each group can have many parent groups and many child groups.

And, I would also like to know how to display the tree like this:

Customer 1
   - Parent group 1
      - Child group 1
         - ChildChild group n
      - Child group n
   - Parent group n
      - ...
         - ...
Customer n
   - ...

---

Another question:

How does the query look to get ALL the groups for all the customers? Parent and child groups.

Answer 1

You can use CTE's to construct "the full path" column on the fly

--DROP TABLE Gruppe, Kunde, Gruppe_Gruppe, Kunde_Gruppe
CREATE TABLE Gruppe (
    Id                  INT PRIMARY KEY
    , Name              VARCHAR(100)
    )
CREATE TABLE Kunde (
    Id                  INT PRIMARY KEY
    , Name              VARCHAR(100)
    )
CREATE TABLE Gruppe_Gruppe (
    ParentGruppeId      INT
    , ChildGruppeId     INT
    )
CREATE TABLE Kunde_Gruppe (
    KundeId             INT
    , GruppeId          INT
    )

INSERT      Gruppe
VALUES      (1, 'Group 1'), (2, 'Group 2'), (3, 'Group 3')
            , (4, 'Sub-group A'), (5, 'Sub-group B'), (6, 'Sub-group C'), (7, 'Sub-group D')

INSERT      Kunde
VALUES      (1, 'Kunde 1'), (2, 'Kunde 2'), (3, 'Kunde 3')

INSERT      Gruppe_Gruppe
VALUES      (1, 4), (1, 5), (1, 7)
            , (2, 6), (2, 7)
            , (6, 1)

INSERT      Kunde_Gruppe
VALUES      (1, 1), (1, 2)
            , (2, 3), (2, 4)

;WITH       CTE
AS          (
            SELECT      CONVERT(VARCHAR(1000), REPLACE(CONVERT(CHAR(5), k.Id), ' ', 'K')) AS TheKey
                        , k.Name        AS Name
            FROM        Kunde k

            UNION ALL

            SELECT      CONVERT(VARCHAR(1000), REPLACE(CONVERT(CHAR(5), x.KundeId), ' ', 'K')
                             + REPLACE(CONVERT(CHAR(5), g.Id), ' ', 'G')) AS TheKey
                        , g.Name
            FROM        Gruppe g
            JOIN        Kunde_Gruppe x
            ON          g.Id = x.GruppeId

            UNION ALL

            SELECT      CONVERT(VARCHAR(1000), p.TheKey + REPLACE(CONVERT(CHAR(5), g.Id), ' ', 'G')) AS TheKey
                        , g.Name
            FROM        Gruppe g
            JOIN        Gruppe_Gruppe x
            ON          g.Id = x.ChildGruppeId
            JOIN        CTE p
            ON          REPLACE(CONVERT(CHAR(5), x.ParentGruppeId), ' ', 'G') = RIGHT(p.TheKey, 5)
            WHERE       LEN(p.TheKey) < 32 * 5
            )
SELECT      *
            , LEN(TheKey) / 5 AS Level
FROM        CTE c
ORDER BY    c.TheKey

Performance might be sub-optimal if you have lots of reads vs rare modifications.