Delete rows from multiple tables using a single query (SQL Express 2005) with a WHERE condition

Question

This is the query I'm using:

 DELETE TB1.*, TB2.*
   FROM TB1
        INNER JOIN TB2 ON TB1.PersonID = TB2.PersonID 
  WHERE (TB1.PersonID)='2'

It's working fine in MS Access but getting error (Incorrect syntax near ','.) in SQL Server Express 2005.

How to solve it? Please help.

Solution 1

You cannot DELETE from multiple tables with a single expression in SQL 2005 - or any other standard SQL for that matter. Access is the exception here.

The best method to get this effect is to specify FOREIGN KEYS between the table with an ON DELETE trigger.

Solution 2

Why you don't use a DELETE CASCADE FK ?

Solution 3

This cannot be done in one statement. You will have to use 2 statements

DELETE FROM TB1 WHERE PersonID = '2';
DELETE FROM TB2 WHERE PersonID = '2';

Solution 4

As i know, you can't do it in a sentence.

But you can build an stored procedure that do the deletes you want in whatever table in a transaction, what is almost the same.

Solution 5

I don't think you can delete from multiple tables at once (though I'm not certain).

It sounds to me, however, that you would be best to achieve this effect with a relationship that cascades deletes. If you did this you would be able to delete the record from one table and the records in the other would be automatically deleted.

As an example, say the two tables represent a customer, and the customer's orders. If you setup the relationship to cascade deletes, you could simply delete record in the customer table, and the orders would get deleted automatically.

See the MSDN doc on cascading referential integrity constraints.

View more solutions