I'm not sure if I should post in PHP or Databases with this one. I'm about to embark on a project involving the build of a content management system (MYSQL + PHP). Have decided on a list of functionality and features which need to be included and now am thinking through the build and operation of the whole thing. I'd like to be able to provide a multi tier navigation system. I'm planning for a table cmsContent to contain the following fields (I'll just list those relevant to this discussion) pageID pageNAME pagePARENT the value of pagePARENT may be NAV_MAIN_MENU, NAV_INDIVIDUAL, or a 'pageNAME' value. This allows a hierarchy to begin being created ie; a page with pageNAME 'steven' might have a pagePARENT 'the_team', pageNAME 'the_team' has pagePARENT 'about_us', pageNAME 'about_us' has pagePARENT 'NAV_MAIN_MENU' I'm now trying to establish the best way of tracing this heirarchy from the page root so that I can create navigation links and create a breadcrumb trail. <a href="/about_us/the_team/">Meet the team</a> <a href="/about_us/the_team/steven/">Steven Brown</a> (I'll be using mod_rewrite to deal with URL's in the manner above.) What are your thoughts on the best way to achieve this? I was also wondering if there would be any use in adding a field pageTIER with a numerical value to check how deep into the navigation tree a page resides?