What does onDelete('cascade') mean?

Question

Schema::table('posts', function (Blueprint $table) {     $table->integer('user_id')->unsigned();     $table->foreign('user_id')->references('id')->on('users')->onDelete('cascade'); }); 

Does this mean that if I delete a post, the user will also be deleted or does it mean if I delete a user, all their posts will be deleted?

Answer 1

Short answer is: in your case, if you deleted a user, all posts related to him will be deleted too.

onDelete('cascade'); simply adds ON DELETE CASCADE rule to your database which specifies that the child data gets deleted when the parent data is deleted.

Note: take care of the typo (double semicolon)

$table->foreign('user_id')->references('id')->on('users')->onDelete('cascade');