I have a table in SQL Server. I would like to delete the top 1000 rows from it. However, I tried this, but I instead of just deleting the top 1000 rows it deleted all the rows in the table.
Here is the code:
delete from [mytab]
select top 1000
a1,a2,a3
from [mytab]
The code you tried is in fact two statements. A DELETE
followed by a SELECT
.
You don't define TOP
as ordered by what.
For a specific ordering criteria deleting from a CTE or similar table expression is the most efficient way.
;WITH CTE AS
(
SELECT TOP 1000 *
FROM [mytab]
ORDER BY a1
)
DELETE FROM CTE
May be better for sql2005+ to use:
DELETE TOP (1000)
FROM [MyTab]
WHERE YourConditions
For Sql2000:
DELETE FROM [MyTab]
WHERE YourIdField IN
(
SELECT TOP 1000
YourIdField
FROM [MyTab]
WHERE YourConditions
)
BUT
If you want to delete specific subset of rows instead of arbitrary subset, you should explicitly specify order to subquery:
DELETE FROM [MyTab]
WHERE YourIdField IN
(
SELECT TOP 1000
YourIdField
FROM [MyTab]
WHERE YourConditions
ORDER BY ExplicitSortOrder
)
Thanks tp @gbn for mentioning and demanding the more clear and exact answer.
As defined in the link below, you can delete in a straight forward manner
USE AdventureWorks2008R2;
GO
DELETE TOP (20)
FROM Purchasing.PurchaseOrderDetail
WHERE DueDate < '20020701';
GO
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms175486(v=sql.105).aspx
delete from [mytab]
where [mytab].primarykeyid in
(
select top 1000 primarykeyid
from [mytab]
)
It is fast. Try it:
DELETE FROM YourTABLE
FROM (SELECT TOP XX PK FROM YourTABLE) tbl
WHERE YourTABLE.PK = tbl.PK
Replace YourTABLE
by table name,
XX
by a number, for example 1000,
pk
is the name of the primary key field of your table.
SET ROWCOUNT 1000;
DELETE FROM [MyTable] WHERE .....