Even though there can be multiple occurrences of any given record name, a parent record cannot have two child records with the same name. Furthermore, every record (other than the Top record) always has one parent record.

The path name for a record is constructed from its record name and its chain of parents up through the hierarchy to level 1 ("Top", "Deposit", "Stockpiles" and "Dumps" are omitted from the path name). This not only identifies each record uniquely, but it is also meaningful and defines how the record fits into the hierarchical database structure.

The path name starts with the level 1 parent name, followed by the other parent names, moving down through the levels and finishing with the record name. Each name is separated by the '\' character.

The following structure tree shows the relationship between record names, which are coloured red, and path names, which are coloured blue. The path name can be built backwards by following the tree up to its root.