You use the DELETE
statement to delete unwanted data from SQL Server database tables.
To execute the DELETE
statement, the user must at least have the DELETE
permission assigned on the target table.
The basic syntax for a DELETE
statement is as follows:
[WITH <common_table_expression> [,...n]] DELETE [TOP (expression) [percent]] [FROM] table_name | view_name | rowset_function [WITH table_hint] <outputclause> [FROM table_source] WHERE search_conditions
The following are the arguments of a DELETE
statement:
WITH
: This keyword specifies the CTE that you can reference in your DELETE
statementTOP
: Specify this keyword to only delete a specific number or percent of rows from the top of the querytable_name | view_name | rowset function | common_table_expression
: This specifies the name of the table, view, rowset function, or CTE containing the data that you want to deleteFROM
: This keyword specifies the name of the table, view, or CTE from which you are deleting the dataWHERE
: This keyword specifies the search condition to identify which records you want to deleteWITH table_hints
: You use this keyword to specify one or more table hints for the destination tableoutput_clause
: You use this to identify the rows affected by a DELETE
statement18.217.254.118