Deleting a table v15
You can remove rows from a table using the DELETE
command. For example, the following sequence of commands shows the before and after results of deleting all employees in department 20
.
SELECT ename, deptno FROM emp;
Output
ename | deptno --------+-------- SMITH | 20 ALLEN | 30 WARD | 30 JONES | 20 MARTIN | 30 BLAKE | 30 CLARK | 10 SCOTT | 20 KING | 10 TURNER | 30 ADAMS | 20 JAMES | 30 FORD | 20 MILLER | 10 (14 rows)
DELETE FROM emp WHERE deptno = 20; SELECT ename, deptno FROM emp;
Output
ename | deptno --------+-------- ALLEN | 30 WARD | 30 MARTIN | 30 BLAKE | 30 CLARK | 10 KING | 10 TURNER | 30 JAMES | 30 MILLER | 10 (9 rows)
Warning
Be careful when giving a DELETE
command without a WHERE
clause such as the following:
DELETE FROM tablename;
This statement removes all rows from the given table, leaving it completely empty. The system doesn't request confirmation before doing this.