DELETE
Use the DELETE
command to permanently remove rows from a table.
Syntax
DELETE FROM table_name
WHERE condition
[ RETURNING col_name ];
Parameters
Parameter or clause | Description |
---|---|
table_name | The table where you want to remove records. |
WHERE condition | Specify which rows you want to remove using an expression that returns a boolean value. Rows for which this expression returns true will be removed. If you omit the WHERE clause, all rows of records in the table will be deleted but the table structure will be kept. |
RETURNING | Returns the values of any column based on each deleted row. |
Example
The taxi_trips
table has three records:
SELECT * FROM taxi_trips;
id | distance | city
----+----------+-------------
1 | 16 | Yerba Buena
2 | 23 | New York
3 | 6 | Chicago
(3 rows)
The following statement removes the record with id 3 from the table. Also, it returns the value of id for the deleted row.
DELETE FROM taxi_trips
WHERE id = 3
RETURNING id;
The following statement removes all rows from the table.
DELETE FROM taxi_trips
Let's see the result.
SELECT * FROM taxi_trips;
id | distance | city
----+----------+------
(0 rows)