Campi tabella autoreferenziali in MySQL

Un'opzione è rendere il tuo campo NULL -able e imposta la chiave principale del record di root su NULL :

CREATE TABLE tb_1 (
   id       int   NOT NULL  PRIMARY KEY,
   value    int   NOT NULL,
   parent   int   NULL,
   FOREIGN KEY (parent) REFERENCES tb_1(id)
) ENGINE=INNODB;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.43 sec)

-- This fails:
INSERT INTO tb_1 VALUES (1, 1, 0);
ERROR 1452 (23000): A foreign key constraint fails.

-- This succeeds:
INSERT INTO tb_1 VALUES (1, 1, NULL);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.08 sec)

Altrimenti potresti comunque usare un NOT NULL chiave genitore e puntalo al record radice stesso:

CREATE TABLE tb_2 (
   id       int   NOT NULL  PRIMARY KEY,
   value    int   NOT NULL,
   parent   int   NOT NULL,
   FOREIGN KEY (parent) REFERENCES tb_2(id)
) ENGINE=INNODB;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.43 sec)

-- This fails:
INSERT INTO tb_2 VALUES (1, 1, 0);
ERROR 1452 (23000): A foreign key constraint fails.

-- This succeeds:
INSERT INTO tb_2 VALUES (1, 1, 1);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.08 sec)