SQL DELETE Statement

The SQL DELETE statement is used to delete records from a database table. It is an important part of any SQL query and is commonly used to clean up data or remove unwanted records. DELETE is a powerful operation and should be used with caution, as it can permanently remove data from a database.

Syntax

DELETE FROM table_name
WHERE condition;
    

Example

DELETE FROM customers
WHERE customer_id = 123;
    

This example deletes the record for the customer with ID 123 from the "customers" table.

Options

• DELETE: The keyword that tells the database to delete records.
• FROM: The table to delete records from.
• WHERE: The condition that must be met for a row to be deleted. This is optional, but if it is omitted, all rows in the table will be deleted. It is usually a good idea to include a WHERE clause to specify which rows to delete, to avoid accidentally deleting too many rows.
• LIMIT: The maximum number of rows to delete. This is optional and can be used to limit the number of rows affected by the DELETE statement. For example:

  DELETE FROM customers WHERE city = 'Los Angeles' LIMIT 10

There are many other options and clauses that can be used with the DELETE statement, such as JOIN and ORDER BY. You can learn more about these and other advanced topics in our SQL tutorials and references.