Cascade Delete Stored Procedure

In database migration tests a database needs to be emptied before each import attempt. Rows can be easily deleted by the delete command if no foreign key constrain is affected. In most small projects simple scripts deleting child tables before deleting the main one are not big deal. However for larger projects especially complex database design we need dynamic scripts to cascade delete rows. Lucky it was there long time ago back to 2002 (http://goo.gl/TEFUf ). Here is the local copy of the code:

 

CREATE Procedure spDeleteRows /* Recursive row delete procedure. It deletes all rows in the table specified that conform to the criteria selected, while also deleting any child/grandchild records and so on. This is designed to do the same sort of thing as Access's cascade delete function. It first reads the sysforeignkeys table to find any child tables, then deletes the soon-to-be orphan records from them using recursive calls to this procedure. Once all child records are gone, the rows are deleted from the selected table. It is designed at this time to be run at the command line. It could also be used in code, but the printed output will not be available. */ ( @cTableName varchar(50), /* name of the table where rows are to be deleted */ @cCriteria nvarchar(1000), /* criteria used to delete the rows required */ @iRowsAffected int OUTPUT /* number of records affected by the delete */ ) As set nocount on declare @cTab varchar(255), /* name of the child table */ @cCol varchar(255), /* name of the linking field on the child table */ @cRefTab varchar(255), /* name of the parent table */ @cRefCol varchar(255), /* name of the linking field in the parent table */ @cFKName varchar(255), /* name of the foreign key */ @cSQL nvarchar(1000), /* query string passed to the sp_ExecuteSQL procedure */ @cChildCriteria nvarchar(1000), /* criteria to be used to delete records from the child table */ @iChildRows int /* number of rows deleted from the child table */ /* declare the cursor containing the foreign key constraint information */ DECLARE cFKey CURSOR LOCAL FOR SELECT SO1.name AS Tab, SC1.name AS Col, SO2.name AS RefTab, SC2.name AS RefCol, FO.name AS FKName FROM dbo.sysforeignkeys FK INNER JOIN dbo.syscolumns SC1 ON FK.fkeyid = SC1.id AND FK.fkey = SC1.colid INNER JOIN dbo.syscolumns SC2 ON FK.rkeyid = SC2.id AND FK.rkey = SC2.colid INNER JOIN dbo.sysobjects SO1 ON FK.fkeyid = SO1.id INNER JOIN dbo.sysobjects SO2 ON FK.rkeyid = SO2.id INNER JOIN dbo.sysobjects FO ON FK.constid = FO.id WHERE SO2.Name = @cTableName OPEN cFKey FETCH NEXT FROM cFKey INTO @cTab, @cCol, @cRefTab, @cRefCol, @cFKName WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0 BEGIN /* build the criteria to delete rows from the child table. As it uses the criteria passed to this procedure, it gets progressively larger with recursive calls */ SET @cChildCriteria = @cCol + ' in (SELECT [' + @cRefCol + '] FROM [' + @cRefTab +'] WHERE ' + @cCriteria + ')' print 'Deleting records from table ' + @cTab /* call this procedure to delete the child rows */ EXEC spDeleteRows @cTab, @cChildCriteria, @iChildRows OUTPUT FETCH NEXT FROM cFKey INTO @cTab, @cCol, @cRefTab, @cRefCol, @cFKName END Close cFKey DeAllocate cFKey /* finally delete the rows from this table and display the rows affected */ SET @cSQL = 'DELETE FROM [' + @cTableName + '] WHERE ' + @cCriteria print @cSQL EXEC sp_ExecuteSQL @cSQL print 'Deleted ' + CONVERT(varchar, @@ROWCOUNT) + ' records from table ' + @cTableName

 

It's simple to use the code. For example, if we do delete with a condition:

DELETE FROM X WHERE field1 = '234'

With the above Stored Procedure we can write:

exec spDeleteRows 'X', 'field1 = ''234''', 0

The Stored Procedure will work but the delete command won't if table X is a parent table of other table(s). The SP is also nested, which means it will delete from as many levels of child tables as it has.