Deleting All Rows of a Table

The DELETE statement specifies a table and usually contains a WHERE clause that designates the row or rows that are to be removed from the table. If the WHERE clause is left out, all rows are deleted. Do not execute the following statement:

DELETE FROM customer

You can write DELETE statements with or without the FROM keyword.

DELETE customer

Because these DELETE statements do not contain a WHERE clause, all rows from the customer table are deleted. If you attempt an unconditional delete using the DB–Access menu options, the program warns you and asks for confirmation. However, an unconditional DELETE from within a program can occur without warning.