I concure with the prescribed approach. Some databases, Oracle in particular, support this self referential table with an SQL syntax "CONNECT BY". You might check your favorite MySQL forum to see if there's corresponding idiom.

A similar problem is mentioned here: database table advice Update: I guess it's related because it's from the same author!

This problem shows up a lot in Bill-of-materials type applications.

Hazah! I'm Employed!

In reply to Re^2: Pulling back paths from a database to populate form field by osunderdog
in thread Pulling back paths from a database to populate form field by coldfingertips

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