I'm trying to make a function that recursively builds a path for a specific category
CREATE FUNCTION getPath(inId INT)
RETURNS TEXT
DETERMINISTIC
BEGIN
DECLARE return_path TEXT;
DECLARE return_parent_id INT;
SELECT CONCAT('/', name) INTO return_path FROM article_categories WHERE id = inId;
SELECT parent_id INTO return_parent_id FROM article_categories WHERE id = inId;
IF return_parent_id > 0 THEN
SELECT CONCAT(getPath(return_parent_id), return_path) INTO return_path;
END IF;
RETURN return_path;
END
When I try to run this function with a category that has no parents (parent_id = 0) it works fine but when I try a category that has a parent_id > 0 I get 1424 Recursive stored functions and triggers are not allowed.
How do I work around this? I'm going to host this code on a regular web hosting service that should have at least MySQL server version 5.1.
After some help from Ike Walker I have made a precedure instead that works fine
DROP PROCEDURE IF EXISTS getPath;
DELIMITER //
CREATE PROCEDURE getPath(IN category_id INT UNSIGNED, OUT return_path TEXT)
BEGIN
DECLARE parent_id INT UNSIGNED;
DECLARE path_result TEXT;
SET max_sp_recursion_depth=50;
SELECT CONCAT('/', ac.name), ac.parent_id INTO return_path, parent_id FROM article_categories AS ac WHERE ac.id = category_id;
IF parent_id > 0 THEN
CALL getPath(parent_id, path_result);
SELECT CONCAT(path_result, return_path) INTO return_path;
END IF;
END //
DELIMITER ;
I then use something like this to call it
CALL getPath(72, @temp); SELECT @temp;
MySQL does not allow recursive FUNCTIONs, even if you set max_sp_recursion_depth.
It does allow up to 255 recursion in a PROCEDURE if you set max_sp_recursion_depth.
So I recommend that you replace your function with a procedure, using an INOUT variable for the return_path.