Archive management system is an important content of MIS(Management Information System). Because there are detailed catalog standard in the field of archive management,and users want to modify the definition of classification in the system themselves to meet the requirement of universality, this article introduces a catalog tree algorithm based on database. That is to generate a good defined catalog tree which locates on the kernel of the whole system. Proper maintenance is applied when catalog standard is changed. This proposal has already been put into use on the archive of a petrifaction enterprise and proved to be feasible.