I've been trying to retrieve comments to articles in a pretty common blog fashion way. Here's my sample code: -- ---------------------------- -- Sample Table structure for [dbo].[Comments] -- ---------------------------- CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Comments] ( [CommentID] int NOT NULL , [AddedDate] datetime NOT NULL , [AddedBy] nvarchar(256) NOT NULL , [ArticleID] int NOT NULL , [Body] nvarchar(4000) NOT NULL , [parentCommentID] int NULL ) GO -- ---------------------------- -- Sample Records of Comments -- ---------------------------- INSERT INTO [dbo].[Comments] ([CommentID], [AddedDate], [AddedBy], [ArticleID], [Body], [parentCommentID]) VALUES (N'1', N'2011-11-26 23:18:07.000', N'user', N'1', N'body', null); GO INSERT INTO [dbo].[Comments] ([CommentID], [AddedDate], [AddedBy], [ArticleID], [Body], [parentCommentID]) VALUES (N'2', N'2011-11-26 23:18:50.000', N'user', N'2', N'body', null); GO INSERT INTO [dbo].[Comments] ([CommentID], [AddedDate], [AddedBy], [ArticleID], [Body], [parentCommentID]) VALUES (N'3', N'2011-11-26 23:19:09.000', N'user', N'1', N'body', null); GO INSERT INTO [dbo].[Comments] ([CommentID], [AddedDate], [AddedBy], [ArticleID], [Body], [parentCommentID]) VALUES (N'4', N'2011-11-26 23:19:46.000', N'user', N'3', N'body', null); GO INSERT INTO [dbo].[Comments] ([CommentID], [AddedDate], [AddedBy], [ArticleID], [Body], [parentCommentID]) VALUES (N'5', N'2011-11-26 23:20:16.000', N'user', N'1', N'body', N'1'); GO INSERT INTO [dbo].[Comments] ([CommentID], [AddedDate], [AddedBy], [ArticleID], [Body], [parentCommentID]) VALUES (N'6', N'2011-11-26 23:20:42.000', N'user', N'1', N'body', N'1'); GO INSERT INTO [dbo].[Comments] ([CommentID], [AddedDate], [AddedBy], [ArticleID], [Body], [parentCommentID]) VALUES (N'7', N'2011-11-26 23:21:25.000', N'user', N'1', N'body', N'6'); GO -- ---------------------------- -- Indexes structure for table Comments -- ---------------------------- -- ---------------------------- -- Primary Key structure for table [dbo].[Comments] -- ---------------------------- ALTER TABLE [dbo].[Comments] ADD PRIMARY KEY ([CommentID]) GO -- ---------------------------- -- Foreign Key structure for table [dbo].[Comments] -- ---------------------------- ALTER TABLE [dbo].[Comments] ADD FOREIGN KEY ([parentCommentID]) REFERENCES [dbo]. [Comments] ([CommentID]) ON DELETE NO ACTION ON UPDATE NO ACTION GO I thought I could use a CTE query to do the job like this: WITH CommentsCTE(CommentID, AddedDate, AddedBy, ArticleID, Body, parentCommentID, lvl, sortcol) AS ( SELECT CommentID, AddedDate, AddedBy, ArticleID, Body, parentCommentID, 0, cast(CommentID as varbinary(max)) FROM Comments UNION ALL SELECT P.CommentID, P.AddedDate, P.AddedBy, P.ArticleID, P.Body, P.parentCommentID, PP.lvl+1, CAST(sortcol + CAST(P.CommentID AS BINARY(4)) AS VARBINARY(max)) FROM Comments AS P JOIN CommentsCTE AS PP ON P.parentCommentID = PP.CommentID ) SELECT REPLICATE('--', lvl) + right('>',lvl)+ AddedBy + ' :: ' + Body, CommentID, parentCommentID, lvl FROM CommentsCTE WHERE ArticleID = 1 order by sortcol go but the results have been very disappointing so far, and after days of tweaking I decided to ask for help. I was looking for a method to display hierarchical comments to articles like it happens in blogs. [edit] The problem with this query is that I get duplicates because I couldn't figure out how to properly select the ArticleID which I want comments from to display. I'm also looking for a method that sorts children entries by date within a same level. An example of what I'm trying to accomplish could be something like: (ArticleID[post retrieved]) ------------------------- ------------------------- (Comments[related to the article id above]) first comment[no parent] --[first child to first comment] --[second child to first comment] ----[first child to second child comment to first comment] --[third child to first comment] ----[first child to third child comment to first comment] ------[(recursive child): first child to first child to third child comment to first comment] ------[(recursive child): second child to first child to third child comment to first comment] second comment[no parent] third comment[no parent] --[first child to third comment] I kinda got myself lost in all this mess...I appreciate any help or simpler ways to get this working. Thanks