Just to spice things up, check out this blog post I wrote back in 2010 (sheesh, was it THAT long ago??) that will display a hierarchy in a graphical way:

You might get a kick out of tongue-in-cheek blog post I wrote about this subject several years ago:
http://bradsruminations.blogspot.com/search/label/SELECT%20*

Steve Jones - SSC Editor (3/10/2016)

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Thanks for the catch. I updated the math to get the PO.

I wonder which of these works better in complex queries. It's worth some performance...

Just want to add to others' comments... There is no bigger fan of CTEs and TVFs and APPLY than I am, but one should not blindly use CTEs instead of...

I did some performance checks and analysis on cursors a while back... you might also find these blog posts of mine interesting:

http://bradsruminations.blogspot.com/2010/05/truth-about-cursors-part-1.html

http://bradsruminations.blogspot.com/2010/05/truth-about-cursors-part-2.html

http://bradsruminations.blogspot.com/2010/05/truth-about-cursors-part-3.html

(Yikes! That...

Hi Jeff...

I appreciate you doing the time tests. Obviously I have to eat my words talking about "half the CPU". When I did comparisons between what I posted...

I'm afraid I didn't read through the last 3 years of comments, but when I'm faced with this kind of thing, I do the following, which takes half the CPU...

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:...

Paul White NZ (9/22/2010)

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For my money, a production-quality SQLCLR solution is closest, since it produces the...

Paul White NZ (9/22/2010)

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I must admit I'm a little confused about the conclusions being drawn overall.

At the risk of stating the obvious, using a multi-statement TVF is exactly equivalent to...

Paul White NZ (9/22/2010)

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This seems a good time to highlight some other issues too:

. . .

The XML solution needs to be modified (as shown on Brad's blog) to handle entitization...

Jeff Moden (9/21/2010)

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Then it dawned on me to try an mlTVF instead of an iTVF so, still clutching my favorite blanky and the beer lollipop, I built one... and it...

Paul White NZ (9/20/2010)

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Jeff Moden (9/20/2010)

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The reason why I mention SARGable is because I believe that it might be able to do a better job at cost estimation if it...

I'm attaching it... along with the execution plan. The plan is...

bitbucket-25253 (9/20/2010)

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Brad Schulz

Attempted to view your plans Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 . Result:

The XML page cannot be displayed

Cannot view XML input using style sheet. Please correct the...