How to write a SQL DELETE statement with a SELECT statement in the WHERE clause?

Question

Database: Sybase Advantage 11

On my quest to normalize data, I am trying to delete the results I get from this SELECT statement:

SELECT tableA.entitynum FROM tableA q INNER JOIN tableB u on (u.qlabel = q.entityrole AND u.fieldnum = q.fieldnum)  WHERE (LENGTH(q.memotext) NOT IN (8,9,10)  OR q.memotext NOT LIKE '%/%/%') AND (u.FldFormat = 'Date') ; 

This is the DELETE statement I have come up with:

DELETE FROM tableA WHERE (SELECT q.entitynum FROM tableA q INNER JOIN tableB u on (u.qlabel = q.entityrole AND u.fieldnum = q.fieldnum)  WHERE (LENGTH(q.memotext) NOT IN (8,9,10)  OR q.memotext NOT LIKE '%/%/%') AND (u.FldFormat = 'Date')) ; 

I continuously get this error when I try to run this statement:

ERROR IN SCRIPT: poQuery: Error 7200:  AQE Error:  State = S0000;   NativeError = 2124; [iAnywhere Solutions][Advantage SQL Engine]Invalid operand for operator: = Boolean value cannot be operated with non-Boolean value. 

I have also tried this statement:

DELETE FROM tableA  INNER JOIN tableB u on (u.qlabel = tableA.entityrole AND u.fieldnum = tableA.fieldnum)  WHERE (LENGTH(q.memotext) NOT IN (8,9,10)  OR tableA.memotext NOT LIKE '%/%/%') AND (u.FldFormat = 'Date') ; 

Which results in:

ERROR IN SCRIPT: poQuery: Error 7200:  AQE Error:  State = 42000;   NativeError = 2117; [iAnywhere Solutions][Advantage SQL Engine] Unexpected token: INNER -- Expecting semicolon. -- Location of error in the SQL statement is: 23 (line: 2 column: 1) 

Could someone aid me in properly constructing a DELETE query that will result in the proper data being removed?

Answer 1

You need to identify the primary key in TableA in order to delete the correct record. The primary key may be a single column or a combination of several columns that uniquely identifies a row in the table. If there is no primary key, then the ROWID pseudo column may be used as the primary key.

DELETE FROM tableA WHERE ROWID IN    ( SELECT q.ROWID     FROM tableA q       INNER JOIN tableB u on (u.qlabel = q.entityrole AND u.fieldnum = q.fieldnum)      WHERE (LENGTH(q.memotext) NOT IN (8,9,10) OR q.memotext NOT LIKE '%/%/%')       AND (u.FldFormat = 'Date')); 

Answer 2

Your second DELETE query was nearly correct. Just be sure to put the table name (or an alias) between DELETE and FROM to specify which table you are deleting from. This is simpler than using a nested SELECT statement like in the other answers.

Corrected Query (option 1: using full table name):

DELETE tableA FROM tableA INNER JOIN tableB u on (u.qlabel = tableA.entityrole AND u.fieldnum = tableA.fieldnum)  WHERE (LENGTH(tableA.memotext) NOT IN (8,9,10) OR tableA.memotext NOT LIKE '%/%/%') AND (u.FldFormat = 'Date') 

Corrected Query (option 2: using an alias):

DELETE q FROM tableA q INNER JOIN tableB u on (u.qlabel = q.entityrole AND u.fieldnum = q.fieldnum)  WHERE (LENGTH(q.memotext) NOT IN (8,9,10)  OR q.memotext NOT LIKE '%/%/%') AND (u.FldFormat = 'Date') 

More examples here:
How to Delete using INNER JOIN with SQL Server?