Update: MySQL 8.0 is finally getting the feature of common table expressions, including recursive CTEs.
Here’s a blog announcing it: http://mysqlserverteam.com/mysql-8-0-labs-recursive-common-table-expressions-in-mysql-ctes/
Below is my earlier answer, which I originally wrote in 2008.
MySQL 5.x does not support queries using the WITH syntax defined in SQL-99, also called Common Table Expressions.
This has been a feature request for MySQL since January 2006: http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=16244
Other RDBMS products that support common table expressions:
- Oracle 9i release 2 and later:
http://www.oracle-base.com/articles/misc/with-clause.php - Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and later:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190766(v=sql.90).aspx - IBM DB2 UDB 8 and later:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/db2luw/v8/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.db2.udb.doc/admin/r0000879.htm - PostgreSQL 8.4 and later:
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/queries-with.html - Sybase 11 and later:
http://dcx.sybase.com/1100/en/dbusage_en11/commontblexpr-s-5414852.html - SQLite 3.8.3 and later:
http://sqlite.org/lang_with.html - HSQLDB:
http://hsqldb.org/doc/guide/dataaccess-chapt.html#dac_with_clause - Firebird 2.1 and later (the first Open Source DBMS to support recursive queries):
http://www.firebirdsql.org/file/documentation/release_notes/html/rlsnotes210.html#rnfb210-cte - H2 Database (but only recursive):
http://www.h2database.com/html/advanced.html#recursive_queries - Informix 14.10 and later:
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSGU8G_14.1.0/com.ibm.sqls.doc/ids_sqs_with.htm