How can I store data in a table as a trie? (SQL Server)

Question

To make things easier, the table contains all the words in the English dictionary.

What I would like to do is be able to store the data as a trie. This way I can traverse the different branches of the trie and return the most relevant result.

First, how do I store the data in the table as a trie?

Second, how do I traverse the tree?

If it helps at all, the suggestion in this previous question is where this question was sparked from.

Please make sure it's SQL we're talking about. I understood the Mike Dunlavey's C implementation because of pointers but can't see how this part (The trie itself) works in SQL.

Thanks,
Matt

Answer 1

You model your data hierarchies with SQL Server 2008 using hierarchy id. See this MSDN magazine reference.