Example: DELETE cascade rule

Deleting a department from the DEPARTMENT table sets WORKDEPT (in the EMPLOYEE table) to null for every employee assigned to that department. Consider the following DELETE statement:

   DELETE FROM CORPDATA.DEPARTMENT
           WHERE DEPTNO = 'E11'

Given the tables and the data in the DB2 UDB for iSeries sample tables, one row is deleted from table DEPARTMENT, and table EMPLOYEE is updated to set the value of WORKDEPT to its default wherever the value was 'E11'. A question mark ('?') in the sample data below reflects the null value. The results appear as follows:

Table 1. DEPARTMENT table. Contents of the table after the DELETE statement is complete.
DEPTNO	DEPTNAME	MGRNO	ADMRDEPT
A00	SPIFFY COMPUTER SERVICE DIV.	000010	A00
B01	PLANNING	000020	A00
C01	INFORMATION CENTER	000030	A00
D01	DEVELOPMENT CENTER	?	A00
D11	MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS	000060	D01
D21	ADMINISTRATION SYSTEMS	000070	D01
E01	SUPPORT SERVICES	000050	A00
E21	SOFTWARE SUPPORT	000100	E01
F22	BRANCH OFFICE F2	?	E01
G22	BRANCH OFFICE G2	?	E01
H22	BRANCH OFFICE H2	?	E01
I22	BRANCH OFFICE I2	?	E01
J22	BRANCH OFFICE J2	?	E01

Note that there were no cascaded delete operations in the DEPARTMENT table because no department reported to department 'E11'.

Below are snapshots of one affected portion of the EMPLOYEE table before and after the DELETE statement is completed.

Table 2. Partial EMPLOYEE table. Partial contents before the DELETE statement.
EMPNO	FIRSTNME	MI	LASTNAME	WORKDEPT	PHONENO	HIREDATE
000230	JAMES	J	JEFFERSON	D21	2094	1966-11-21
000240	SALVATORE	M	MARINO	D21	3780	1979-12-05
000250	DANIEL	S	SMITH	D21	0961	1960-10-30
000260	SYBIL	P	JOHNSON	D21	8953	1975-09-11
000270	MARIA	L	PEREZ	D21	9001	1980-09-30
000280	ETHEL	R	SCHNEIDER	E11	0997	1967-03-24
000290	JOHN	R	PARKER	E11	4502	1980-05-30
000300	PHILIP	X	SMITH	E11	2095	1972-06-19
000310	MAUDE	F	SETRIGHT	E11	3332	1964-09-12
000320	RAMLAL	V	MEHTA	E21	9990	1965-07-07
000330	WING		LEE	E21	2103	1976-02-23
000340	JASON	R	GOUNOT	E21	5696	1947-05-05

Table 3. Partial EMPLOYEE table. Partial contents after the DELETE statement.
EMPNO	FIRSTNME	MI	LASTNAME	WORKDEPT	PHONENO	HIREDATE
000230	JAMES	J	JEFFERSON	D21	2094	1966-11-21
000240	SALVATORE	M	MARINO	D21	3780	1979-12-05
000250	DANIEL	S	SMITH	D21	0961	1960-10-30
000260	SYBIL	P	JOHNSON	D21	8953	1975-09-11
000270	MARIA	L	PEREZ	D21	9001	1980-09-30
000280	ETHEL	R	SCHNEIDER	?	0997	1967-03-24
000290	JOHN	R	PARKER	?	4502	1980-05-30
000300	PHILIP	X	SMITH	?	2095	1972-06-19
000310	MAUDE	F	SETRIGHT	?	3332	1964-09-12
000320	RAMLAL	V	MEHTA	E21	9990	1965-07-07
000330	WING		LEE	E21	2103	1976-02-23
000340	JASON	R	GOUNOT	E21	5696	1947-05-05