This article is published by
SitePoint, an
online magazine for Web Development and Design
Professionals.
[30-4-2003]
Whether you want to build your own forum, publish the messages from a mailing list on your Website, or write your own cms: there will be a moment that you'll want to store hierarchical data in a database. And, unless you're using a XML-like database, tables aren't hierarchical; they're just a flat list. You'll have to find a way to translate the hierarchy in a flat file.