RE: Cleanup of child records...

I would propose one more solution:  

delete from <child_table>
where rowid in

                            (
                            select <child_table>.rowid
                            from <child_table>
                                minus
                            select <child_table>.rowid
                            from <child_table>,
                                     <parent_table>
                        where <child_table>.<fk_field> =
<parent_table>.<fk_field>
                        )

In some cases it may be faster. But it's strongly recommended to have <fk_field> indexed on both tables.

Michael Rosenblum,

DBA. Dulcian, Inc.

-----Original Message-----
Bill
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 1:30 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

delete from <child_table> where <fk_field> not in
(select <pk_field> from <parent_table>);
 

or  

delete from <child_table> where not exists
(select <pk_field> from <parent_table>

where <parent_table>.<pk_field> = <child_table>.<fk_field>);  

not exists usually out performs not in, but both will work  

bill  

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 12:59 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

TIA List,

What is the most efficient way to remove child records from a table that have no parent records in it's parent table. I want to build a FK, to keep this from happening, but I need to do some cleanup first.

-- 
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-- 
Author: Michael Rosenblum
  INET: mrosenblum_at_dulcian.com

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