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Duplicate of: When/Why to use Cascading in SQL Server?
I’ve always been too scared to use DELETE CASCADE, but as I get more confident (lazy :D), I’m thinking how bad can it be, is it best practise to use it or should I avoid it and clean up my foreign keys etc the old fashioned way (with stored procedures)?
ON DELETE CASCADE is fine, but only when the dependent rows are really a logical extension of the row being deleted. For example, it’s OK for DELETE ORDERS to delete the associated ORDER_LINES because clearly you want to delete this order, which consists of a header and some lines. On the other hand, DELETE CUSTOMER should not delete the associated ORDERS because ORDERS are important in their own right, they are not just attributes of a customer.
One way to think about this is: if I issue DELETE X and it also deletes Y, will I be happy or unhappy? And if I issue DELETE X and am told ‘cannot delete X because Y exists’ will I be glad of the protection, or irritated at the inconvenience?