How do I delete from multiple tables using INNER JOIN in SQL server

In MySQL you can use the syntax

DELETE t1,t2 
FROM table1 AS t1 
INNER JOIN table2 t2 ...
INNER JOIN table3 t3 ...

How do I do the same thing in SQL Server?

Solution 1:

You can take advantage of the "deleted" pseudo table in this example. Something like:

begin transaction;

   declare @deletedIds table ( id int );

   delete from t1
   output deleted.id into @deletedIds
   from table1 as t1
    inner join table2 as t2
      on t2.id = t1.id
    inner join table3 as t3
      on t3.id = t2.id;

   delete from t2
   from table2 as t2
    inner join @deletedIds as d
      on d.id = t2.id;

   delete from t3
   from table3 as t3 ...

commit transaction;

Obviously you can do an 'output deleted.' on the second delete as well, if you needed something to join on for the third table.

As a side note, you can also do inserted.* on an insert statement, and both inserted.* and deleted.* on an update statement.

EDIT: Also, have you considered adding a trigger on table1 to delete from table2 + 3? You'll be inside of an implicit transaction, and will also have the "inserted." and "deleted." pseudo-tables available.

Solution 2:

1. You can always set up cascading deletes on the relationships of the tables.

2. You can encapsulate the multiple deletes in one stored procedure.

3. You can use a transaction to ensure one unit of work.