THE WORLD'S LARGEST WEB DEVELOPER SITE
HTML CSS JAVASCRIPT SQL PHP BOOTSTRAP HOW TO JQUERY W3.CSS ANGULARJS XML MORE FORUM EXAMPLES REFERENCES

SQL DELETE Statement

❮ Previous Next ❯

The SQL DELETE Statement

The DELETE statement is used to delete existing records in a table.

DELETE Syntax

DELETE FROM table_name
WHERE condition;

Note: Be careful when deleting records in a table! Notice the WHERE clause in the DELETE statement. The WHERE clause specifies which record(s) should be deleted. If you omit the WHERE clause, all records in the table will be deleted!

Demo Database

Below is a selection from the "Customers" table in the Northwind sample database:

CustomerID CustomerName ContactName Address City PostalCode Country
1

 Alfreds Futterkiste Maria Anders Obere Str. 57 Berlin 12209 Germany
2 Ana Trujillo Emparedados y helados Ana Trujillo Avda. de la Constitución 2222 México D.F. 05021 Mexico
3 Antonio Moreno Taquería Antonio Moreno Mataderos 2312 México D.F. 05023 Mexico
4

 Around the Horn Thomas Hardy 120 Hanover Sq. London WA1 1DP UK
5 Berglunds snabbköp Christina Berglund Berguvsvägen 8 Luleå S-958 22 Sweden

SQL DELETE Example

The following SQL statement deletes the customer "Alfreds Futterkiste" from the "Customers" table:

Example

DELETE FROM Customers
WHERE CustomerName='Alfreds Futterkiste';
Try it Yourself »

The "Customers" table will now look like this:

CustomerID CustomerName ContactName Address City PostalCode Country
2 Ana Trujillo Emparedados y helados Ana Trujillo Avda. de la Constitución 2222 México D.F. 05021 Mexico
3 Antonio Moreno Taquería Antonio Moreno Mataderos 2312 México D.F. 05023 Mexico
4

 Around the Horn Thomas Hardy 120 Hanover Sq. London WA1 1DP UK
5 Berglunds snabbköp Christina Berglund Berguvsvägen 8 Luleå S-958 22 Sweden

Delete All Records

It is possible to delete all rows in a table without deleting the table. This means that the table structure, attributes, and indexes will be intact:

DELETE FROM table_name;

or:

DELETE * FROM table_name;

❮ Previous Next ❯