Skip to main content

Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.ocient.com/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

supports multiple options for removing records from a database. Here, you can find the different methods for removing data along with their advantages and drawbacks to help you determine the method that best fits your needs.
All options for removing data are destructive and cannot be undone after execution. Therefore, be cautious when removing any Ocient records from your database.

​
Required Permissions

To remove data, a user must have the DELETE privilege for the specified table. For details on privileges, see the Data Control Language (DCL) Statement Reference.

​
Remove Records Using DELETE

The DELETE SQL statement removes specific individual rows from a table based on the WHERE filter clause. Unlike TRUNCATE, the DELETE statement does not restore the disk space of deleted rows without further system operations. In general, DELETE is a good option when removing small row sets, not entire tables. If a DELETE statement has no WHERE filter, it removes all rows in the table. The DELETE statement can support concurrent operations to remove rows on the same table, which might impact performance. For details about the DELETE statement, see DELETE FROM TABLE.

​
Remove Data Using DELETE with a Filter

In this example, the DELETE statement removes all rows from the products table with a value less than 1 in the rating column.
SQL
DELETE FROM products WHERE rating < 1;

​
Remove Data Using Joined Tables

You can use DELETE with a JOIN statement to help filter rows for removal based on a condition that applies to the second table.
The statement removes rows only from the first table and not the second joined table.
This example deletes rows after performing a JOIN operation on the geospatial values in two tables:
  • point_table contains a column of geospatial point values.
  • us_state_table contains columns of all abbreviated U.S. state names and polygon values representing their boundaries.
The JOIN operation uses the ST_INTERSECTS function to evaluate if each point value in point_table is contained within any of the polygon values in the us_state_table. The example deletes any rows in point_table that are within the boundaries of Texas, abbreviated as 'TX'.
SQL
DELETE FROM point_table p
    JOIN us_state_table s ON ST_INTERSECTS(s.polygon_wkt, p.point_wkt)
WHERE s.state LIKE 'TX';

​
Data Durability Considerations

To remove data, the data must be queryable in the system. For example, streaming data systems might experience a delay before rows can be deleted while they are in progress of the loading process to become fully durable. In most cases, data should be loaded and queryable within a matter of seconds. Key Concepts Ingest Data with Legacy LAT Reference Query Ocient
Last modified on May 27, 2026