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.