SQL DELETE

The SQL DELETE statement is used to delete rows from a table. Generally DELETE statement removes one or more records from a table.

SQL DELETE Syntax

Let's see the Syntax for the SQL DELETE statement:

Here table_name is the table which has to be deleted. The WHERE clause in SQL DELETE statement is optional here.

SQL DELETE Example

Let us take a table, named "EMPLOYEE" table.

Example of delete with WHERE clause is given below:

Resulting table after the query:

Another example of delete statement is given below

Resulting table after the query:

It will delete all the records of EMPLOYEE table.

It will delete the all the records of EMPLOYEE table where ID is 101.

The WHERE clause in the SQL DELETE statement is optional and it identifies the rows in the column that gets deleted.

WHERE clause is used to prevent the deletion of all the rows in the table, If you don't use the WHERE clause you might loss all the rows.

Invalid DELETE Statement for ORACLE database

You cannot use * (asterisk) symbol to delete all the records.

Topics of SQL DELETE Statement