T-SQL - DELETE Statement

The SQL Server DELETE Query is used to delete the existing records from a table.

You have to use WHERE clause with DELETE query to delete selected rows, otherwise all the records would be deleted.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of DELETE query with WHERE clause −

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 

Following command is an example, which would DELETE a customer, whose ID is 6 −

DELETE FROM CUSTOMERS 
WHERE ID = 6;

CUSTOMERS table will now 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 CUSTOMERS table, you do not need to use WHERE clause. DELETE query would be as follows −

DELETE FROM CUSTOMERS;

CUSTOMERS table now will not have any record.