Introduction to Recursive CTE

This article will introduce the concept of SQL recursive. Recursive CTE is a really cool. We will see that it can often simplify our code, and avoid a cascade of SQL queries!

Why use a recursive CTE ?

The recursive queries are used to query hierarchical data. It avoids a cascade of SQL queries, you can only do one query to retrieve the hierarchical data.

What is recursive CTE ?

First, what is a CTE? A CTE (Common Table Expression) is a temporary named result set that you can reference within a SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE statement. For example, you can use CTE when, in a query, you will use the same subquery more than once.

A recursive CTE is one having a subquery that refers to its own name!

Recursive CTE is defined in the SQL standard.

How to make a recursive CTE?

A recursive CTE has this structure:

The WITH clause must begin with "WITH RECURSIVE"

The recursive CTE subquery has two parts, separated by "UNION [ALL]" or "UNION DISTINCT":

The first part produces the initial row(s) for the CTE. This SELECT does not refer to the CTE name.

The second part recurses by referring to the CTE name in its FROM clause.

Practice / Example

In this example, we use hierarchical data. Each row can have zero or one parent. And it parent can also have a parent etc.

Create table test (id integer, parent_id integer);


insert into test (id, parent_id) values (1, null);

insert into test (id, parent_id) values (11, 1);
insert into test (id, parent_id) values (111, 11);

insert into test (id, parent_id) values (112, 11);

insert into test (id, parent_id) values (12, 1);

insert into test (id, parent_id) values (121, 12);

For example, the row with id 111 has as ancestors: 11 and 1.

Before knowing the recursive CTE, I was doing several queries to get all the ancestors of a row.

For example, to retrieve all the ancestors of the row with id 111.

While (has parent)

	Select id, parent_id from test where id = X

With recursive CTE, we can retrieve all ancestors of a row with only one SQL query :)

WITH RECURSIVE cte_test AS (
	SELECT id, parent_id FROM test WHERE id = 111
	UNION 
	SELECT test.id, test.parent_id FROM test JOIN cte_test ON cte_test.id = test.parent_id
) SELECT * FROM cte_test

Explanations:

"WITH RECURSIVE":

It indicates we will make recursive

"SELECT id, parent_id FROM test WHERE id = 111":

It is the initial query.

"UNION ... JOIN cte_test" :

It is the recursive expression! We make a jointure with the current CTE!

Replay this example here

More information here