WordPress wpdb delete - PHP

WordPress wpdb is an essential class that provides an easy way to interact with the WordPress database. It is a part of the WordPress database access abstraction layer, which is used by WordPress when communicating with the database.

The wpdb class provides various methods for different types of database operations such as selecting, inserting, updating, and deleting data from the database. In this article, we will be discussing the delete method of wpdb.

Deleting Data from the WordPress Database

To delete data from the WordPress database using wpdb, we can use the delete method. The syntax for the delete method is as follows:

$wpdb->delete( $table, $where, $format = null )

The delete method takes three parameters:

• $table: This parameter is required and specifies the name of the table to delete data from.
• $where: This parameter is optional and specifies the WHERE clause of the delete operation. We can use the sprintf syntax to prepare placeholders. The placeholders are replaced by actual values from the $where parameter.
• $format: This parameter is optional and specifies the format of the values in the $where parameter. Possible values are '%d' for integer, '%f' for float, '%s' for string, and '%s' for literal strings.

Example

Let's take an example to understand the delete method of wpdb. Assume we have a wp_posts table and we want to delete a post with ID 100 from the database. Here is how we can use the delete method to achieve this:

global $wpdb;

$table = $wpdb->prefix . 'posts';
$where = array( 'ID' => 100 );

$wpdb->delete( $table, $where );

In the above code, we first get the name of the wp_posts table using the prefix property of wpdb. We then define the $where parameter as an array with the key ID and the value 100. Finally, we call the delete method of wpdb with the $table and $where parameters to delete the post with ID 100 from the database.

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed the delete method of wpdb, which is essential for deleting data from the WordPress database. We also saw how to use this method with an example. It is important to use the delete method carefully and to always sanitize inputs to prevent SQL injection attacks.