> That's the "classical" way, which is also used in our current
> implementation with integers instead of ltrees, but it's not very easy
> to query efficiently (at least ordering seems to remain a problem).
That (with integer ids) is classic way to support graph structure, ltree was
develop specially for trees.
> Maybe something along the lines of the following is possible?:
Exact, it's for what ltree was developed.
> Do ltrees know that a node with path 'A.B.D' references it's parent
> 'A.B'? I mean, can ltree 'A.B' equal ltree 'A.B.D' somehow while the
> strings are unequal?
> Can it be made to know that somehow (functional foreign keys or
> something - maybe using "ltree_isparent(ltree, ltree)")?
Yes, use ltree_isparent or
contrib_regression=# select 'a.b.c' <@ 'a.b'::ltree;
?column?
----------
t
(1 row)
contrib_regression=# select 'a.b.c.d' <@ 'a.b'::ltree;
?column?
----------
t
(1 row)
contrib_regression=# select 'a.b.c.d'::ltree ~ 'a.b.*{1}';
?column?
----------
f
(1 row)
contrib_regression=# select 'a.b.c'::ltree ~ 'a.b.*{1}';
?column?
----------
t
(1 row)
>
> I can determine things like this with a few experiments, but I want to
> know "the right way" to work with ltrees and referential integrity. How
> do people use this?
That's right way.
--
Teodor Sigaev E-mail: teodor@sigaev.ru
WWW: http://www.sigaev.ru/