How to delete from multiple tables in MySQL?

Question

I am trying to delete from a few tables at once. I\'ve done a bit of research, and came up with this

DELETE FROM `pets` p,
            `pets_activities` pa
          


        

Answer 1

Use a JOIN in the DELETE statement.

DELETE p, pa
      FROM pets p
      JOIN pets_activities pa ON pa.id = p.pet_id
     WHERE p.order > :order
       AND p.pet_id = :pet_id

Alternatively you can use...

DELETE pa
      FROM pets_activities pa
      JOIN pets p ON pa.id = p.pet_id
 WHERE p.order > :order
   AND p.pet_id = :pet_id

...to delete only from pets_activities

See this.

For single table deletes, yet with referential integrity, there are other ways of doing with EXISTS, NOT EXISTS, IN, NOT IN and etc. But the one above where you specify from which tables to delete with an alias before the FROM clause can get you out of a few pretty tight spots more easily. I tend to reach out to an EXISTS in 99% of the cases and then there is the 1% where this MySQL syntax takes the day.