How to delete a row in SQL

Learn how to delete a row in SQL with examples and explanations from SQLPad.

Problem

You have a table in your SQL database and you want to delete a specific row from this table.

Sample Data

Consider a simple table called employees, which has the following data:

id	first_name	last_name	email
1	John	Doe	[email protected]
2	Jane	Doe	[email protected]
3	Jim	Brown	[email protected]

MySQL Solution

DELETE FROM employees WHERE id = 3;

Explanation for MySQL Solution

In MySQL, the DELETE command is used to remove rows from a table. The WHERE clause is used to specify the conditions that must be met for a row to be deleted. In our example, the row with an id of 3 will be removed from the employees table.

PostgreSQL Solution

DELETE FROM employees WHERE id = 3;

Explanation for PostgreSQL Solution

The way to delete a row in PostgreSQL is the same as in MySQL. The DELETE command is used, along with the WHERE clause to specify the condition that must be satisfied for a row to be deleted. In this case, the row with an id of 3 in the employees table will be deleted.