Question

I have this query that works fine. Its deletes records that are old based on current time.

$cleanacc_1 = "DELETE FROM $acc_1 
    WHERE `Scheduled` < DATE_SUB(UTC_TIMESTAMP(), INTERVAL 30 SECOND)";

$result = mysql_query($cleanacc_1);

However, there are over 100 tables (accounts) that need deleting and I was wondering if I can combine them into one query. If possible how?

Answer 1

This implies you create a new table for every account. Why are you not creating a record for each account within a single table?

For example…

create table account (id int unsigned primary key auto_increment, other fields...);

If you alter your table structure you will be able to delete individual account records with a single query…

delete from account where condition=true;

Individual transaction records for each account are then stored in another table and contain the account id they relate to…

create table transaction (id, account_id, other transaction fields);

If you don’t change the database design you’ll need to write PHP code that loops through each table and runs your delete query. This is very inefficient and I urge you to redesign the table as suggested.

If you don’t understand why my table redsign suggestion is a better approach, post more information about your database and I’ll explain in more detail with a working example.