Delete Data In a Database

The DELETE FROM statement is used to delete records from a database table.

Syntax

DELETE FROM table_name

WHERE some_column = some_value

Note: Notice the WHERE clause in the DELETE syntax. The WHERE clause specifies which record or records that should be deleted. If you omit the WHERE clause, all records will be deleted!

To learn more about SQL, please visit our SQL tutorial.

To get PHP to execute the statement above we must use the mysql_query() function. This function is used to send a query or command to a MySQL connection.

Example

Look at the following "Persons" table:

FirstName LastName Age

Peter Griffin 35

Glenn Quagmire 33

The following example deletes all the records in the "Persons" table where LastName='Griffin':

$con = mysql_connect("localhost","peter","abc123");

if (!$con)

  {

  die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());

  }

mysql_select_db("my_db", $con);

mysql_query("DELETE FROM Persons WHERE LastName='Griffin'");

mysql_close($con);

?> 

After the deletion, the table will look like this:

FirstName	LastName	Age
Glenn	Quagmire	33