Recursive Tables!

[Rawb]

I was wondering how I could implement a "tiered" product in my database.

You see, we sell a product that is assembled from other products (which we also assemble/produce). The rub is that some of these assembled products are themselves, made from other assembled products!

For example we have Products D and E:
Product D is made from Products A and B.
Product E is made from Products A and C.

Now we have product F:
Product F is made from Products D and E!

What we end up (for the assembly components) for Product F is:

• Product F
  
  • Product D
    
    • Product A
    • Product B
    
    
  • Product E
    
    • Product A
    • Product C
    
    
  
  

How can I represent that in a database so that there can be an arbitrary number of sub-assemblies (each with an arbitrary number of components)?

[Rawb]

OK, I figured it out. You just add a second field that stores the ID of the "parent" Record (even though the parent's still in the same Table). If there aren't any Parents, you just set this field to zero or something similar.

Example (and a new, related problem) here!