Working with recursive queries

Hierarchical and Recursive Queries in SQL Server

Jasmin Ludolf

Content Developer

The hierarchy of an IT-organization

The organization is described by:

ID - Employee ID
Name of Employee
JobTitle in the company
Department in the company
Supervisor in the company

Fields describing hierarchy:

ID
Supervisor

Employee 2 has Supervisor 1

The IT-organization

+-----------------------+---------------------+------------+------------+
|ID | Name              | Position            | Department | Supervisor |    
|-----------------------|---------------------|------------|------------|
| 1 | Heinz Griesser    | IT Director         | IT         | 0          |
| 2 | Andreas Sitter    | Security Manager    | IT         | 1          |
| 3 | Thomas Bergman    | Innovation Manager  | IT         | 1          |
| 4 | Hannes Berg       | Operation Manager   | IT         | 1          |
| 5 | Anna Kruggel      | Administrator       | IT         | 4          |
| 6 | Karin Pacher      | Developer           | IT         | 4          |
+-----------------------+---------------------+------------+------------+

Common tasks for hierarchical data

Get the hierarchy of a record

Who is your supervisor?

Get the level of the hierarchy

Get the hierarchy level of an organization

Combine recursion results into one field

Which supervisors do I have?

Get the hierarchy

WITH hierarchy AS (
    SELECT ID,Supervisor
        FROM employee 
        WHERE supervisor = 0

    UNION ALL
    SELECT emp.ID, emp.Supervisor
        FROM employee emp

    JOIN hierarchy
      ON emp.Supervisor = hierarchy.ID)
SELECT *
    FROM hierarchy

Get the hierarchy

+---+-----------+
|ID |Supervisor |
|---|-----------|
|1  | 0         |
|2  | 1         |
|3  | 2         |
+---+-----------+

Get the level of the hierarchy

WITH hierarchy AS (
    SELECT ID, Supervisor, 1 as LEVEL
        FROM employee
           WHERE Supervisor = 0

    UNION ALL
    SELECT emp.ID, emp.Supervisor, LEVEL + 1
        FROM employee emp

    JOIN hierarchy
    ON emp.Supervisor = hierarchy.ID
)
SELECT *
    FROM hierarchy

Get the level of the hierarchy

+---+-----------+-------|
|ID |Supervisor | Level |
|---|-----------|-------|
|1  | 0         | 0     |
|2  | 1         | 1     |
+---+-----------+-------+

Combine recursion results into one field

WITH hierarchy AS (
    SELECT ID, Supervisor, CAST('0' AS VARCHAR(MAX)) as PATH
        FROM employee
        WHERE Supervisor = 0

    UNION ALL
    SELECT emp.ID, emp.Supervisor, Path + '->' + CAST(emp.Supervisor AS VARCHAR(MAX))
        FROM employee emp
    INNER JOIN hierarchy
    ON emp.Supervisor = hierarchy.ID
)
SELECT *
    FROM hierarchy

Combine recursion results into one field

+-----+--------+
| PATH         |
|--------------|
| 0 -> 1 -> 4  |
+-----+--------+

Let's query the IT-organization

Hierarchical and Recursive Queries in SQL Server