On 13 Jan 2004, at 19:11, Jochem van Dieten wrote:
> I most certainly hope this Oracle idiosyncracy will never make it into
> MySQL.
>
> The SQL standard defines a different syntax for doing recursive
> queries, using WITH RECURSIVE. I see no reason for MySQL to implement
> a non-standard way for doing recursive queries when there is a viable
> alternative (DB2 already uses WITH conform the SQL standard) that has
> standardized behaviour.
> I know that a CONNECT BY PRIOR patch is readily available for
> PostgreSQL but the PostgreSQL developers reject it exactly because it
> does not follow the SQL standard. I think the PostgreSQL developers
> are right to do so, non-standard features have caused enough trouble
> for application portability as it is.
>
> Jochem
>
Point taken. I never knew about the WITH RECURSIVE syntax.
Certainly, if CONNECT BY PRIOR is an Oracle only extension, then WITH
RECURSIVE does sound like the better option of the two.
Steve.
