Accessing a temporary table multiple times in MySql

Question

I have tried to use a temporary table as an intermediate result holder for a SELECT statement. The problem is though that I can\'t access the temp table multiple times in ot

Answer 1

Known bug (feature) - read http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/temporary-table-problems.html

Here's how i work around the problem...

drop table if exists employees;
create table employees
(
emp_id smallint unsigned not null auto_increment primary key,
name varchar(255) not null,
boss_id smallint unsigned null,
key (boss_id)
)
engine = innodb;

insert into employees (name, boss_id) values
('f00',null), 
  ('ali later',1), 
  ('megan fox',1), 
      ('jessica alba',3), 
      ('eva longoria',3), 
         ('keira knightley',5), 
            ('liv tyler',6), 
            ('sophie marceau',6);


drop procedure if exists employees_hier;

delimiter #

create procedure employees_hier
(
in p_emp_id smallint unsigned
)
begin

declare v_done tinyint unsigned default(0);
declare v_dpth smallint unsigned default(0);

create temporary table hier(
 boss_id smallint unsigned, 
 emp_id smallint unsigned, 
 depth smallint unsigned
)engine = memory;

insert into hier select boss_id, emp_id, v_dpth from employees where emp_id = p_emp_id;

/* http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/temporary-table-problems.html */

create temporary table emps engine=memory select * from hier;

while not v_done do

    if exists( select 1 from employees e inner join hier on e.boss_id = hier.emp_id and hier.depth = v_dpth) then

        insert into hier select e.boss_id, e.emp_id, v_dpth + 1 
            from employees e inner join emps on e.boss_id = emps.emp_id and emps.depth = v_dpth;

        set v_dpth = v_dpth + 1;            

        truncate table emps;
        insert into emps select * from hier where depth = v_dpth;

    else
        set v_done = 1;
    end if;

end while;

select 
 e.emp_id,
 e.name as emp_name,
 p.emp_id as boss_emp_id,
 p.name as boss_name,
 hier.depth
from 
 hier
inner join employees e on hier.emp_id = e.emp_id
left outer join employees p on hier.boss_id = p.emp_id;

drop temporary table if exists hier;
drop temporary table if exists emps;

end #

delimiter ;

-- call this sproc from your php

call employees_hier(1);