MySQL operating hierarchical data

Question

I have MySQL table structure:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `categories` (
  `id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `parent_id` int(10) unsigned NOT N         


        

Answer 1

What I use is a different design, and though it has limitations, if you can bear them, it's very simple and very efficient.

Here is an example of taxonomic tree of birds so the hierarchy is Class/Order/Family/Genus/Species - species is the lowest level, 1 row = 1 species:

CREATE TABLE `taxons` (
  `TaxonId` smallint(6) NOT NULL default '0',
  `ClassId` smallint(6) default NULL,
  `OrderId` smallint(6) default NULL,
  `FamilyId` smallint(6) default NULL,
  `GenusId` smallint(6) default NULL,
  `Name` varchar(150) NOT NULL default ''
);

and the example of the data:

+---------+---------+---------+----------+---------+-------------------------------+
| TaxonId | ClassId | OrderId | FamilyId | GenusId | Name                          |
+---------+---------+---------+----------+---------+-------------------------------+
|     254 |       0 |       0 |        0 |       0 | Aves                          |
|     255 |     254 |       0 |        0 |       0 | Gaviiformes                   |
|     256 |     254 |     255 |        0 |       0 | Gaviidae                      |
|     257 |     254 |     255 |      256 |       0 | Gavia                         |
|     258 |     254 |     255 |      256 |     257 | Gavia stellata                |
|     259 |     254 |     255 |      256 |     257 | Gavia arctica                 |
|     260 |     254 |     255 |      256 |     257 | Gavia immer                   |
|     261 |     254 |     255 |      256 |     257 | Gavia adamsii                 |
|     262 |     254 |       0 |        0 |       0 | Podicipediformes              |
|     263 |     254 |     262 |        0 |       0 | Podicipedidae                 |
|     264 |     254 |     262 |      263 |       0 | Tachybaptus                   |

This is great because this way you accomplish all the needed operations in a very easy way, as long as the categories don't change their level in the tree.