Summary -

In this topic, we described about the DELETE All Rows with detailed example.

Sometimes, there are requirements to delete the entire table data to free up the memory or deleting data from temporary tables etc,.

DELETE statement used to delete the data from the table and frees up the memory that is utilized by table till the deletion. We should all make a note that the deleted data, won't be recovered until or unless it is specified as recoverable.

Executing DELETE statement without WHERE clause deletes entire table data. So be cautious while using DELETE statement, it can end up by deleting the whole table data if you are used WHERE clause.

Syntax -

DELETE FROM table_name;
  • table_name – Specifies the name of the table.

Example –

Let us consider below table(s) as an example table(s) to frame the SQL query for getting the desired results.

employee_details -

emp_id emp_name designation manager_id date_of_hire salary dept_id
001 Employee1 Director 2019-07-11 45000.00 1000
002 Employee2 Director 2019-07-11 40000.00 2000
003 Employee3 Manager Employee1 2019-07-11 27000.00 1000
004 Employee4 Manager Employee2 2019-10-08 25000.00 2000
005 Employee5 Analyst Employee3 2019-07-11 20000.00 1000
006 Employee6 Analyst Employee3 2019-10-08 18000.00 1000
007 Employee7 Clerk Employee3 2019-07-11 15000.00 1000
008 Employee8 Salesman Employee4 2019-09-09 14000.00 2000
009 Employee9 Salesman Employee4 2019-10-08 13000.00 2000

Scenario – Deleting all rows from existing table.

Requirement – Delete all rows from employee_details table. The query was as follows – 

DELETE FROM employee_details;

By executing above query, we can delete all rows from employee_details. The output was as follows -

emp_id emp_name designation manager_id date_of_hire salary dept_id

Scenario – Verifying table.

Requirement – Verifying employee_details table to check all the rows deleted or not. The query was as follows – 

SELECT * FROM employee_details;

By executing above query,we can verify the employee_details table. The output was as follows -

emp_id emp_name designation manager_id date_of_hire salary dept_id