PHP/MySQL - building a nav menu hierarchy

Question

So the final menu will look something like this:

Item B
    Item B-1
        Item B-1-2
        Item B-1-1
Item A
    SubItem A-1
    SubItem A-2
Item C
         


        

Answer 1

Another simple way you can generate hierarchy if you don't want to use nested sets is to use a simple text string in front.

Item B
    Item B-1
        Item B-1-2
        Item B-1-1
Item A
    SubItem A-1
    SubItem A-2
Item C

Would become

1 Item B
  1.1 Item B1
    1.1.1 Item B11
    1.1.2 Item B12
2 Item A
  2.1 Item A1
  2.2 Item B2
3 Item C

The digit in front of each item could be stored in a field and parsed based on length (representing the depth of where it is) to tell you everything you need to know about where it goes.

I use nested set hierarchies for more complicated stuff that requires calculation,e tc, but I find this approach has served well