About the DELETE Statement

The DELETE statement deletes rows from a table.

A simple form of the DELETE statement has this syntax:

DELETE FROM table_name
[ WHERE condition ];

If you include the WHERE clause, the statement deletes only rows that satisfy condition. If you omit the WHERE clause, the statement deletes all rows from the table, but the empty table still exists. To delete a table, use the DROP TABLE statement.

The DELETE statement in the following example deletes the rows inserted in About the INSERT Statement.

DELETE FROM EMPLOYEES
WHERE HIRE_DATE = '01-JAN-07';

2 rows deleted.