Linked Lists in mySQL?

[LordLanky]

Hi All,

 

I have a linking table in my database that looks something like this:

 

TO |  FROM         

 

1, 4

1, 7

2, 3

2, 9

3, 7

3, 8

 

Basically - it's a list of IDS where two records are associated. I.e., the top row says that ID 1 is related to ID 2. The second row says that ID 1 is related to ID 7. It's a -many-to-many kind of thing - many 'froms' join with many 'tos', and vice-versa.

 

What i am trying to do is make a 'journey' through this data. I.e. make a linked list of all the following IDs from a single given one. In PHP I would simply take one id, find the related id, then run another query - over and over until the chain runs out.

 

I was wondering if there is a clever mysql way of doing this?

 

many thanks!

[mikosiko]

no knowing exactly what problem are you trying to solve with that data model seems to me that you are trying to implement some kind of hierarchical thing.... this could give you some ideas

 

http://dev.mysql.com/tech-resources/articles/hierarchical-data.html