Recursive CTE - org chart traversal

Question

Accepted Answer

The anchor selects Alice (manager_id IS NULL) at depth 0. The recursive member joins employees back to org, adding depth+1 for each level. Pass 1: Bob reports to Alice (depth 0+1=1). Pass 2: Carol reports to Bob (depth 1+1=2). No one reports to Carol, so recursion stops. This pattern works for any hierarchy - product categories, file systems, org charts - regardless of depth.