Why does CONNECT BY LEVEL on a table return extra rows?

When connect by is used without start with clause and prior operator, there is no restriction on joining children row to a parent row. And what Oracle does in this situation, it returns all possible hierarchy permutations by connecting a row to every row of level higher.

SQL> select b  2       , level as lvl  3       , sys_connect_by_path(b, '->') as ph  4     from a  5  connect by level <= 2  6  ;         B        LVL PH       ---------- ----------          1          1 ->1         1          2 ->1->1         2          2 ->1->2         3          2 ->1->3         2          1 ->2         1          2 ->2->1         2          2 ->2->2         3          2 ->2->3         3          1 ->3         1          2 ->3->1         2          2 ->3->2         3          2 ->3->312 rows selected

In the first query, you connect by just the level. So if level <= 1, you get each of the records 1 time. If level <= 2, then you get each level 1 time (for level 1) + N times (where N is the number of records in the table). It is like you are cross joining, because you're just picking all records from the table until the level is reached, without having other conditions to limit the result. For level <= 3, this is done again for each of those results.

So for 3 records:

• Lvl 1: 3 record (all having level 1)
• Lvl 2: 3 records having level 1 + 3*3 records having level 2 = 12
• Lvl 3: 3 + 3*3 + 3*3*3 = 39 (indeed, 13 records each).
• Lvl 4: starting to see a pattern? :)

It's not really a cross join. A cross join would only return those records that have level 2 in this query result, while with this connect by, you get the records having level 1 as well as the records having level 2, thus resulting in 3 + 3*3 instead of just 3*3 record.

you're comparing apples to oranges when comparing the final query to the others as the LEVEL is isolated in that to the 1-row dual table.

lets consider this query:

 select id, level as lvl   from aconnect by level <= 2  order by id, level

what that is saying is, start with the table set (select * From a). then, for each row returned connect this row to the prior row. as you have not defined a join in the connect by, this is in effect a Cartesian join, so when you have 3 rows of (1,2,3) 1 joins to 2, 1->3, 2->1, 2->3, 3->1 and 3->2 and they also join to themselves 1->1,2->2 and 3->3. these joins are level=2. so we have 9 joins there, which is why you get 12 rows (3 original "level 1" rows plus the Cartesian set).

so the number of rows output = rowcount + (rowcount^2)

in the last query you are isolating level to this

select level  as lvl           from dual        connect by level  <= 2

which of course returns 2 rows. this is then cartesianed to the original 3 rows, giving 6 rows as output.