Re: Recursive SQL

"Andy Turk" <andy_turk(at)hotmail(dot)com> writes:
> I was reading Graeme Birchall's SQL Cookbook at
> http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Graeme_Birchall/HTM_COOK.HTM
> and came across an *amazing* technique called recursive SQL.

Interesting, but I think Birchall has confused some very peculiar
(and incorrect) implementation-specific behavior of DB2 with SQL.
This is not SQL.

Leaving aside a minor quibble about whether the WITH syntax he shows
is valid (it's surely not SQL92, although it might be SQL3 if SQL3 ever
becomes a standard), the really fundamental problem is that you cannot
have a SELECT query that inspects its own output. He claims that in
SELECT foo UNION SELECT bar, the "bar" select will somehow see the
output of the "foo" select --- and not only that, but will be
recursively invoked to see its *own* outputs. I do not believe that
any such interpretation can be extracted from the SQL standard.
If SQL worked that way, then simple commands like
UPDATE foo SET x = 42 WHERE y = 44
would be infinite loops, because they'd see the new tuples produced
by their own action and try to update those, leading to more new
tuples, etc etc.

He's built a large intellectual edifice on a DB2 bug.

regards, tom lane