How to list tables affected by cascading delete

Question

I'm trying to perform a cascading delete on 15+ tables but I'm not certain that all of the requisite foreign keys have been configured properly. I would like to check for missing constraints without manually reviewing each constraint.

Is there a way to obtain a list of tables that will be affected by a cascading delete query?

Answer 1

Use pg_depend. Example:

create table master (id int primary key);
create table detail_1 (id int, master_id int references master(id) on delete restrict);
create table detail_2 (id int, master_id int references master(id) on delete cascade);

select pg_describe_object(classid, objid, objsubid)
from pg_depend 
where refobjid = 'master'::regclass and deptype = 'n';

                  pg_describe_object
------------------------------------------------------
 constraint detail_1_master_id_fkey on table detail_1
 constraint detail_2_master_id_fkey on table detail_2
(2 rows)

deptype = 'n' means:

DEPENDENCY NORMAL - A normal relationship between separately-created objects. The dependent object can be dropped without affecting the referenced object. The referenced object can only be dropped by specifying CASCADE, in which case the dependent object is dropped, too.

Use pg_get_constraintdef() to get constraint definitions:

select 
    pg_describe_object(classid, objid, objsubid), 
    pg_get_constraintdef(objid)
from pg_depend 
where refobjid = 'master'::regclass and deptype = 'n';


                  pg_describe_object                  |                       pg_get_constraintdef
------------------------------------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------
 constraint detail_1_master_id_fkey on table detail_1 | FOREIGN KEY (master_id) REFERENCES master(id) ON DELETE RESTRICT
 constraint detail_2_master_id_fkey on table detail_2 | FOREIGN KEY (master_id) REFERENCES master(id) ON DELETE CASCADE
(2 rows)

---

To find the full chain of cascading dependencies we should use recursion and look into the catalog pg_constraint to get id of a dependent table.

with recursive chain as (
    select classid, objid, objsubid, conrelid
    from pg_depend d
    join pg_constraint c on c.oid = objid
    where refobjid = 'the_table'::regclass and deptype = 'n'
union all
    select d.classid, d.objid, d.objsubid, c.conrelid
    from pg_depend d
    join pg_constraint c on c.oid = objid
    join chain on d.refobjid = chain.conrelid and d.deptype = 'n'
    )
select pg_describe_object(classid, objid, objsubid), pg_get_constraintdef(objid)
from chain;