POST_START

Deleting Selected Records from Delta Tables

I recently needed to clean up some customer data in my Delta table. The task was to remove a specific customer record by their ID. I started by checking the current state of the table to make sure I understood what I was working with.

SELECT * FROM training.sales.customers;

I saw a representative result like this:

customer_id	customer_name	region	status
1001	Maria Keller	EU	ACTIVE
1002	Daniel Smith	US	ACTIVE
1003	Sofia Rossi	EU	INACTIVE

I noticed that customer_id 1002 was the one I needed to delete. Before making any changes, I wanted to be absolutely sure I was targeting the correct record. Once I confirmed the details, I proceeded with the deletion operation.

DELETE FROM training.sales.customers WHERE customer_id = 2;

I saw a representative result like this:

After running the delete command, I wanted to verify that the record was actually removed. I ran a select query again to check the updated state of the table.

SELECT * FROM training.sales.customers;

I saw a representative result like this:

customer_id	customer_name	region	status
1001	Maria Keller	EU	ACTIVE
1003	Sofia Rossi	EU	INACTIVE

I verified that the customer with ID 2 was no longer present in the table. This confirmed that the deletion was successful. It was a straightforward operation, but it’s always important to double-check the results to avoid accidental data loss.