Re: Program explosion report

On Fri, May 8, 2015 at 10:37 AM, Dan <dan27649@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Are there any scenarios of which you're aware that would cause this query
> to loop endlessly?

I'm no SQL expert, but I was wondering this myself.  In particular, I
am pretty sure I can construct the A calls B and B calls A scenario.
When those programs really run, they can terminate via conditions
within the code.  But when just checking the references, there's no
termination condition.

(I was going to test this out for myself at some point if no one else
brought it up.)

If I were writing a program to follow the references, I wouldn't use
SQL (not because it can't be done in SQL but because *I* could not do
it in SQL).  I would keep track of which programs I've visited
already, so that I could avoid repeating myself.

I don't know if you have circular references in your case, but I had
wondered if Jonathan's code would handle them.

John Y.