A beautiful question
2006-12-15
Although quite short this post is so incredibly geek-fu that... Well, you were warned.
There's an RPG called Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP) in which characters can progress through a number of careers, each one offering a number of possible entries and exits. (If I've lost you already, don't worry, I'm sure you're not the only one). A while back I got bored and stuck the list of careers along with their entries and exits into a database on my MySQL server, and left them there for future interest.
Working on a rather annoying dBase/FoxPro thing lately, I wanted something to remind me why I love SQL:
The instruction is 'tell me the name of each career for which the career named "Witch hunter" is an exit'.
Lovely, isn't it?
Incidentally, the answer is:
Anointed Priest, Assassin, Champion, High Priest, Judicial Champion, Knight of the Inner Circle, Vampire Hunter
But that wasn't really the point.
There's an RPG called Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP) in which characters can progress through a number of careers, each one offering a number of possible entries and exits. (If I've lost you already, don't worry, I'm sure you're not the only one). A while back I got bored and stuck the list of careers along with their entries and exits into a database on my MySQL server, and left them there for future interest.
Working on a rather annoying dBase/FoxPro thing lately, I wanted something to remind me why I love SQL:
SELECT c1.name
FROM career AS c1
JOIN exit ON c1.id = exit.from
JOIN career AS c2 ON c2.id = exit.to
WHERE c2.name = "Witch hunter"The instruction is 'tell me the name of each career for which the career named "Witch hunter" is an exit'.
Lovely, isn't it?
Incidentally, the answer is:
Anointed Priest, Assassin, Champion, High Priest, Judicial Champion, Knight of the Inner Circle, Vampire Hunter
But that wasn't really the point.
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