SQL - Creating associations between fields (Transitive relationship)

Question

I have a sql table that contains a list of affiliations where Entity A owns Entity B, Entity B owns Entity C, etc... I don\'t have any sql text to include here because I\'m not

Answer 1

Well i cant say anything for ORACLE, but you could manage it with recursive CTE in sql server. Heres my sample solution, it does what you asked for assuming that you have a table witch maps relation many-to-many from one table to itself

DECLARE @testData table (EntityID int, EntityName varchar(1))
DECLARE @EntityRelations table (EntityID1 int, EntityID2 int)

INSERT INTO @testData
SELECT 1, 'A'
UNION
SELECT 2, 'B'
UNION
SELECT 3, 'C'
UNION
SELECT 4, 'D'
UNION
SELECT 5, 'E'
UNION
SELECT 6, 'F'
UNION
SELECT 7, 'G'
UNION
SELECT 8, 'Y'
UNION
SELECT 9, 'Z'

INSERT INTO @EntityRelations
SELECT 1, 2
UNION
SELECT 9, 2
UNION
SELECT 8, 2
UNION
SELECT 2, 3
UNION
SELECT 2, 4
UNION
SELECT 4, 5
UNION
SELECT 6, 7;


WITH Affiliations (EntityID, Entity1Name, Entity2Name) AS
(
    SELECT r.EntityID1
          ,e.EntityName as Entity1Name
          ,e2.EntityName as Entity2Name
    FROM @EntityRelations r
        JOIN @testData e ON e.EntityID = r.EntityID1
        JOIN @testData e2 ON e2.EntityID = r.EntityID2

    UNION ALL

    SELECT r.EntityID1
          ,e.EntityName as Entity1Name
          ,e2.EntityName as Entity2Name
    FROM @EntityRelations r
        JOIN @testData e ON e.EntityID = r.EntityID1
        JOIN @testData e2 ON e2.EntityID = r.EntityID2
        JOIN Affiliations a ON a.EntityID = r.EntityID2
)

,AffiliationsReverse (EntityID, Entity1Name, Entity2Name) AS
(
    SELECT r.EntityID2
          ,e.EntityName as Entity1Name
          ,e2.EntityName as Entity2Name
    FROM @EntityRelations r
        JOIN @testData e ON e.EntityID = r.EntityID1
        JOIN @testData e2 ON e2.EntityID = r.EntityID2

    UNION ALL

    SELECT r.EntityID2
          ,e.EntityName as Entity1Name
          ,e2.EntityName as Entity2Name
    FROM @EntityRelations r
        JOIN @testData e ON e.EntityID = r.EntityID1
        JOIN @testData e2 ON e2.EntityID = r.EntityID2
        JOIN AffiliationsReverse a ON a.EntityID = r.EntityID1
)


SELECT DISTINCT EntityName
FROM
(
SELECT a.Entity1Name AS EntityName
FROM Affiliations a
    JOIN AffiliationsReverse ar ON ar.EntityID = a.EntityID

UNION

SELECT a.Entity2Name AS EntityName
FROM Affiliations a
    JOIN AffiliationsReverse ar ON ar.EntityID = a.EntityID

UNION

SELECT ar.Entity1Name AS EntityName
FROM Affiliations a
    JOIN AffiliationsReverse ar ON ar.EntityID = a.EntityID

UNION

SELECT ar.Entity2Name AS EntityName
FROM Affiliations a
    JOIN AffiliationsReverse ar ON ar.EntityID = a.EntityID


) s