Delete (SQL)
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An SQL DELETE statement removes one or more records from a table. A subset may be defined for deletion using a condition, otherwise all records are removed.
[edit] Usage
The DELETE statement has this syntax:
DELETEFROMtable_name [WHEREcondition]
Any rows that match the WHERE condition will be removed from the table. If the WHERE clause is omitted, all rows in the table are removed.
The DELETE statement does not return any rows; that is, it will not generate a result set.
Executing a DELETE statement may cause triggers to run that may cause deletes in other tables. For example, if two tables are linked by a foreign key and rows in one table were deleted, then it is common that rows in the second table would also have to be deleted to maintain referential integrity. For a more general discussion of how cascading deletes are handled, see propagation constraint.
[edit] Examples
Delete value Lemon Meringue from table pies, where the column equals flavour:
DELETE FROM pies WHERE flavour='Lemon Meringue';
Delete rows in mytable, if the value of mycol is greater than 100.
DELETE FROM mytable WHERE mycol > 100;
Delete all rows from mytable:
DELETE FROM mytable;
[edit] Example with related tables
Suppose there is a simple database that lists people and addresses. More than one person can live at a particular address and a person can live at more than one address (this is an example of a many-to-many relationship). The database only has three tables, person, address, and pa, with the following data:
person
| pid | name |
|---|---|
| 1 | Joe |
| 2 | Bob |
| 3 | Ann |
address
| aid | description |
|---|---|
| 100 | 2001 Main St. |
| 200 | 35 Pico Blvd. |
pa
| pid | aid |
|---|---|
| 1 | 100 |
| 2 | 100 |
| 3 | 100 |
| 1 | 200 |
The pa table relates the person and address tables, showing that Joe, Bob and Ann all live at 2001 Main Street, but Joe also takes up residence on Pico Boulevard.
In order to remove joe from the database, two deletes must be executed:
DELETE FROM person WHERE pid=1 DELETE FROM pa WHERE pid=1
To maintain referential integrity, Joe's records must be removed from both person and pa. The means by which integrity is sustained can happen differently in varying relational database management systems[citation needed]. It could be that beyond just having three tables, the database also has been set up with a trigger so that whenever a row is deleted from person any linked rows would be deleted from pa. Then the first statement:
DELETE FROM person WHERE pid=1
would automatically trigger the second:
DELETE FROM pa WHERE pid=1
