cascading deletes causing multiple cascade paths

Question

I am using SQlServer 2008, and an extract of some datatables is displayed below:

Users

Id (PK)

UserItems

UserId (PK) ItemId (PK) - (Compo

Answer 1

I would lead toward bad design. While most DBMSs can manage cascading deletes, it is risky to use this built in functionality. Your scenario is a perfect example of why these types of things are often managed in application code. There you can determine exactly what needs to be deleted and in what order.