Question

I have a schema, named BILL, and in this schema all the tables have a column named ID. I need a way to delete the row from all the tables, where ID = ‘test’. There are a lot of schemas, so it is important that i only delete them from BILL. There are tables that don’t contain a test row too if it matters. This is an oracle database.

I couldn’t figure out how to do this with sql. Maybe pl/sql? Any thoughts?

Answer 1

I’d go with execute immediate:

begin
   for t in (select table_name from dba_tables where owner = 'BILL') loop

       execute immediate 'delete from ' || t.table_name || 
                         ' where id = ''test''';

   end loop;
end;
/

This should work if all tables in that schema have a column name named id (as you indiciated is the case). Otherwise, you should join with dba_tab_columns to make sure to only select tables that have such a column.

It will fail, too, if id is a primary key that other tables reference. In that case you could embed the execute immediate into a

begin
  execute immediate '....';
exception when others then
  dbms_output.put_line('failed to delete in ' || t.table_name);
end;