> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.risingwave.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# DELETE

> Use the `DELETE` command to permanently remove rows from a table.

<Note>
  * Call [FLUSH](/sql/commands/sql-flush) after `DELETE` to persist the changes to storage. This ensures that the changes are committed and visible for subsequent reads.
  * If you only need the `DELETE` to wait until it is included in a successful checkpoint, you can enable [`DML_WAIT_PERSISTENCE`](/sql/commands/sql-set-dml-wait-persistence). This does not provide the same immediate read-after-write visibility as `FLUSH`.
</Note>

## Syntax

```sql theme={null}
DELETE FROM table_name
WHERE condition
[ RETURNING col_name ];
```

## Parameters

| Parameter or clause   | Description                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                |
| :-------------------- | :------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| *table\_name*         | The table where you want to remove records.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                |
| **WHERE** *condition* | Specify which rows you want to remove using an expression that returns a boolean value. Rows for which this expression returns true will be removed.  If you omit the WHERE clause, all rows of records in the table will be deleted but the table structure will be kept. |
| **RETURNING**         | Returns the values of any column based on each deleted row.                                                                                                                                                                                                                |

## Example

The `taxi_trips` table has three records:

```sql theme={null}
SELECT * FROM taxi_trips;
```

```sql theme={null}
 id | distance |    city
----+----------+-------------
  1 |       16 | Yerba Buena
  2 |       23 | New York
  3 |        6 | Chicago
(3 rows)
```

The following statement removes the record with id 3 from the table. Also, it returns the value of *id* for the deleted row.

```sql theme={null}
DELETE FROM taxi_trips
WHERE id = 3
RETURNING id;
```

The following statement removes all rows from the table.

```sql theme={null}
DELETE FROM taxi_trips
```

Let's see the result.

```sql theme={null}
SELECT * FROM taxi_trips;
```

```sql theme={null}
 id | distance | city
----+----------+------
(0 rows)
```