Summary for Recursion
Summarize the key insights you’ve explored about recursion in MySQL.
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Recursion is a phenomenon in which something is defined in terms of itself. In computer science, recursion refers to a function that calls itself as part of its definition. In the sense of divide and conquer, recursion allows one to solve a complex problem in smaller, simple steps.
Recursive common table expressions (CTEs)
In MySQL, recursion is implemented through recursive CTEs:
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WITH [RECURSIVE]cte_name [(col_name [, col_name] ...)] AS (subquery)[, cte_name [(col_name [, col_name] ...)] AS (subquery)] ...
With RECURSIVE, we are allowed to refer to cte_name in the definition of subquery. As recursion can incur an infinite loop, we also need to define a condition to terminate the recursive ...