Topological sorting in sql - sql-server-2008

Question

I am resolving dependency between some objects in a table.
I have to do something with objects in order their dependency.
For example, the first object doesn't depend on any object. The second and third ones depends on first one and so on. I have to use topological sorting.
Could someone show the sample of implementation so sorting in t-sql.
I have a table:
create table dependency
(
DependencyId PK
,ObjectId
,ObjectName
,DependsOnObjectId
)
I want to get
ObjectId
ObjectName
SortOrder
Thank you.

Answer 1

It seams, it works:
declare #step_no int
declare #dependency table
(
DependencyId int
,ObjectId int
,ObjectName varchar(100)
,DependsOnObjectId int
,[rank] int NULL
,degree int NULL
);
insert into #dependency values (5, 5, 'Obj 5', 2, NULL, NULL)
insert into #dependency values (6, 6, 'Obj 6', 7, NULL, NULL)
insert into #dependency values (2, 2, 'Obj 2', 1, NULL, NULL)
insert into #dependency values (3, 3, 'Obj 3', 1, NULL, NULL)
insert into #dependency values (1, 1, 'Obj 1', 1, NULL, NULL)
insert into #dependency values (4, 4, 'Obj 4', 2, NULL, NULL)
insert into #dependency values (7, 7, 'Obj 7', 2, NULL, NULL)
update #dependency set rank = 0
-- computing the degree of the nodes
update d set d.degree =
(
select count(*) from #dependency t
where t.DependsOnObjectId = d.ObjectId
and t.ObjectId <> t.DependsOnObjectId
)
from #dependency d
set #step_no = 1
while 1 = 1
begin
update #dependency set rank = #step_no where degree = 0
if (##rowcount = 0) break
update #dependency set degree = NULL where rank = #step_no
update d set degree = (
select count(*) from #dependency t
where t.DependsOnObjectId = d.ObjectId and t.ObjectId != t.DependsOnObjectId
and t.ObjectId in (select tt.ObjectId from #dependency tt where tt.rank = 0))
from #dependency d
where d.degree is not null
set #step_no = #step_no + 1
end
select * from #dependency order by rank

Answer 2

You have a simple tree structure with only one path to each ObjectId so labeling based off number of DependsOnObjectId links traversed gives only one answer and a good enough answer to process the right stuff first. This is easy to do with a common table expression and has the benefit of easy portability:
with dependency_levels as
(
select ObjectId, ObjectName, 0 as links_traversed
from dependency where DependsOnObjectId is null
union all
select ObjectId, ObjectName, links_traversed+1
from dependecy
join dependency_levels on dependency.DependsOnObjectId = dependency_levels.ObjectId
)
select ObjectId, ObjectName, links_traversed
from dependency_levels
order by links_traversed