SQL Server recursive self join

Question

I have a simple categories table as with the following columns:

• Id
• Name
• ParentId

So, an infinite amount of Categories can be the child of a category. Take for example the following hierarchy:

I want, in a simple query that returns the category "Business Laptops" to also return a column with all it's parents, comma separator or something:

Or take the following example:

Answer 1

Recursive cte to the rescue....

Create and populate sample table (Please save us this step in your future questions):

DECLARE @T as table
(
    id int,
    name varchar(100),
    parent_id int
)

INSERT INTO @T VALUES
(1, 'A', NULL),
(2, 'A.1', 1),
(3, 'A.2', 1),
(4, 'A.1.1', 2),
(5, 'B', NULL),
(6, 'B.1', 5),
(7, 'B.1.1', 6),
(8, 'B.2', 5),
(9, 'A.1.1.1', 4),
(10, 'A.1.1.2', 4)

The cte:

;WITH CTE AS
(
    SELECT id, name, name as path, parent_id
    FROM @T 
    WHERE parent_id IS NULL
    UNION ALL
    SELECT t.id, t.name, cast(cte.path +','+ t.name as varchar(100)), t.parent_id
    FROM @T t
    INNER JOIN CTE ON t.parent_id = CTE.id
)

The query:

SELECT id, name, path
FROM CTE

Results:

id      name        path
1       A           A
5       B           B
6       B.1         B,B.1
8       B.2         B,B.2
7       B.1.1       B,B.1,B.1.1
2       A.1         A,A.1
3       A.2         A,A.2
4       A.1.1       A,A.1,A.1.1
9       A.1.1.1     A,A.1,A.1.1,A.1.1.1
10      A.1.1.2     A,A.1,A.1.1,A.1.1.2

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