The SQL DELETE Query is used to delete the existing records from a table.
You can use the WHERE clause with a DELETE query to delete the selected rows, otherwise all the records would be deleted.
Syntax
The basic syntax of the DELETE query with the WHERE clause is as follows −
DELETE FROM table_name WHERE [condition];
You can combine N number of conditions using AND or OR operators.
Example
Consider the CUSTOMERS table having the following records −
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+ | ID | NAME | AGE | ADDRESS | SALARY | +----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+ | 1 | Ramesh | 32 | Ahmedabad | 2000.00 | | 2 | Khilan | 25 | Delhi | 1500.00 | | 3 | kaushik | 23 | Kota | 2000.00 | | 4 | Chaitali | 25 | Mumbai | 6500.00 | | 5 | Hardik | 27 | Bhopal | 8500.00 | | 6 | Komal | 22 | MP | 4500.00 | | 7 | Muffy | 24 | Indore | 10000.00 | +----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
The following code has a query, which will DELETE a customer, whose ID is 6.
SQL> DELETE FROM CUSTOMERS WHERE ID = 6;
Now, the CUSTOMERS table would have the following records.
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+ | ID | NAME | AGE | ADDRESS | SALARY | +----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+ | 1 | Ramesh | 32 | Ahmedabad | 2000.00 | | 2 | Khilan | 25 | Delhi | 1500.00 | | 3 | kaushik | 23 | Kota | 2000.00 | | 4 | Chaitali | 25 | Mumbai | 6500.00 | | 5 | Hardik | 27 | Bhopal | 8500.00 | | 7 | Muffy | 24 | Indore | 10000.00 | +----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
If you want to DELETE all the records from the CUSTOMERS table, you do not need to use the WHERE clause and the DELETE query would be as follows −
SQL> DELETE FROM CUSTOMERS;
Now, the CUSTOMERS table would not have any record.