Deleting rows from parent and child tables

Question

Assume two tables in Oracle 10G

TableA (Parent) --> TableB (Child)

Every row in TableA has several child rows related to it in TableB. <

Answer 1

Here's a complete example of how it can be done. However you need flashback query privileges on the child table.

Here's the setup.

create table parent_tab
  (parent_id number primary key,
  val varchar2(20));

create table child_tab
    (child_id number primary key,
    parent_id number,
    child_val number,
     constraint child_par_fk foreign key (parent_id) references parent_tab);

insert into parent_tab values (1,'Red');
insert into parent_tab values (2,'Green');
insert into parent_tab values (3,'Blue');
insert into parent_tab values (4,'Black');
insert into parent_tab values (5,'White');

insert into child_tab values (10,1,100);
insert into child_tab values (20,3,100);
insert into child_tab values (30,3,100);
insert into child_tab values (40,4,100);
insert into child_tab values (50,5,200);

commit;

select * from parent_tab
where parent_id not in (select parent_id from child_tab);

Now delete a subset of the children (ones with parents 1,3 and 4 - but not 5).

delete from child_tab where child_val = 100;

Then get the parent_ids from the current COMMITTED state of the child_tab (ie as they were prior to your deletes) and remove those that your session has NOT deleted. That gives you the subset that have been deleted. You can then delete those out of the parent_tab

delete from parent_tab
where parent_id in
  (select parent_id from child_tab as of scn dbms_flashback.get_system_change_number
  minus
  select parent_id from child_tab);

'Green' is still there (as it didn't have an entry in the child table anyway) and 'Red' is still there (as it still has an entry in the child table)

select * from parent_tab
where parent_id not in (select parent_id from child_tab);

select * from parent_tab;

It is an exotic/unusual operation, so if i was doing it I'd probably be a bit cautious and lock both child and parent tables in exclusive mode at the start of the transaction. Also, if the child table was big it wouldn't be particularly performant so I'd opt for a PL/SQL solution like Rajesh's.