Steve,

Unfortunately, you are using the same logic everyone else uses to defend the use of inefficient code, "It works for my case." Problem is, it is still inefficient. Recursion is by nature RBAR, Row By Agonizing Row. My routine eliminates both the recursion and the IO generated by using worktable.

Also, you seem to be indicating that using OPTION (MAXRECURSION 60) makes the call to your routine more efficient than OPTION (MAXRECURSION 0), which it doesn't. I ran multiple tests using both and they were comparable, in fact the OPTION (MAXRECURSION) was actually faster in many cases (although I only ran about 10 runs of each).

Some one is going to look at your code and say, "Hey, that is exactly what I need for what I am working on!", when in actuality it isn't because what they may be doing is against several hundred thousand rows or more with a high frequency of usage.