Thread: How to delete multiple rows from multiple joined tables

I'm trying to use SQL to delete multiple rows from multiple tables that are
joined together.  From what I've seen delete can only delete from a single
table, which is OK because I can just do separate deletes for each table.
But the problem is how do I specify which rows to delete?  For example:

Table A is joined to Table B
Table B is joined to Table C

I want to delete all rows in table C & B that correspond to a row in Table
A.  Here's my exact SQL which actually deletes all the rows:

delete from monitorstatusitemx where monitorx.namex='STRESS_TEST' and
monitorstatusx.jdoidx = monitorstatus_statusitemsx.jdoidx and
monitorstatus_statusitemsx.statusitemsx =
monitorstatusitemlistd8ea58a5x.jdoidx and
monitorstatusitemlistd8ea58a5x.statusitemlistx = monitorstatusitemx.jdoidx

(It's a little ugly because I'm using JDO which generates the schema.
Unfortunately deletes with JDO are very slow so I need to use SQL for this.)

Michael

"Michael Mattox" <michael.mattox@verideon.com> writes:
> I want to delete all rows in table C & B that correspond to a row in Table
> A.

Depending on how automatic you want that to be, perhaps foreign keys
would do what you want?  You could set up B's and C's links to A as
"on delete cascade" foreign keys, and then a deletion from A would
clean them up too.
        regards, tom lane