Lineage was created to allow retrieval of any or all related assets with a single, simple query to the database. This means we can retrieve all ancestors, parents, siblings, children, and descendants as well as know the ranks of all within a group of siblings.

The WebGUI lineage system stores all this information in a 6 digit number padded by zeros at the front and starting with the number 1.

Example lineage:

000001000005000028000002000009

From this lineage we can gather the following information quickly and easily:

What generation is the current asset? Five, because there are five sets of six numbers.

What is the lineage of this asset's parent? 000001000005000028000002,because we simply subtract the last six digits off the end of the lineage, and we have the parent's lineage.

What is the lineage of this asset's grandparent? 000001000005000028, using the same mechanism we used to find the parent.

What is the lineage of the first or root asset? 000001. It must always be 000001 due to the definition of lineage.

How can I find the children of this asset? Get a list of assets that have a lineage that begins with 000001000005000028000002000009 and have a lineage length of 6.

How can I find the siblings of this asset? Get a list of the assets which have a lineage that begins with 000001000005000028000002 and have a lineage length of 5, and that does not have a lineage of 000001000005000028000002000009.

What is the rank of this asset? 9, because the last set is 000009, and we can remove the padding to get 9.

What is the rank of this asset's granparent? 28. First find the grand parent, and then find the rank.