Question

I’m having difficulty deleting the desired rows from my table in MySQL. I’m using a rather complex subquery to select the rows, but for some reason I’m unable to delete them using a similar syntax.

delete * from table1 as t1
where t1.col1 in 
(select y.col1 
 from table2 x 
 join 
    (select col1, col2 
     from table2
     where col2 like "%- 2%") y 
 on x.col2 = replace(y.col2, "- 2", ""));

Again, I can select the exact rows I wanted deleted, but when I change the query to delete I get the following error:

ERROR 1064 (42000): You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near...

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Remove the * after DELETE. You don’t usually delete individual columns, you delete entire rows.