Taxonomic database structure

[Geoff Read]

Doug Yanega once wrote:
" ...Since we're dealing with a hierarchy, it's
possible to  get by with just a single table.  It needs only have the
taxon  identifier  (name, id number, whatever) and the corresponding
identifier for its  parent.   Of course, that parent has a parent, on
down/up to the most inclusive  taxon in your database.  We're using
Oracle as our RDBMS and it has a nice  SQL add-on  feature that
facilitates traversing such hierarchies."

Does anyone know if & where such an add-on is available for MS-Access? I
would find it very handy. For instance a structure as above is used by
Platypus, the checklist generator,  which stores its data in Access
tables. It would be very useful to be able to customise extraction of
_all_ information from Platypus tables as _I_ want it without
creating horrendous SQL expressions by 'hand'.


--
   Geoff Read <gread at actrix.gen.nz>