How to delete rows in SQLite with multiple where args?

Question

I want to delete rows which satisfy any of multiple conditions.

For example, I pass a list of IDs, and I want to delete all rows with these IDs (IDs are uni

Answer 1

Here's an example which builds the "?, ?, ?, ..." placeholder string with StringBuilder. If there are many parameters, plain string concatenation would create lots of garbage, StringBuilder helps with that.

String[] ids = {"0", "1", "2", "3",...};

StringBuilder placeholders = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = 0; i < ids.length; i++) {
    if (i != 0)
        placeholders.append(", ");

    placeholders.append("?");
}

String where = "id IN (" + placeholders.toString() + ")";

db.delete("rows", where, args);

Answer 2

Android official documentation tells here that using execSQL is not the proper way to delete records.

I would like to suggest the following simple method. Using provided delete() api.

String[] idArray = new String[] {"1", "2", "3"};
String idsCSV = TextUtils.join(",", idArray);
SQLiteDatabase db = getWritableDatabase();
if (db != null) {
    db.delete("table_name", "id IN (" + idsCSV + ")", null);
    db.close();
}

Answer 3

You may get it done through db.execSQL method and SQL's IN keyword. For example:

String args = TextUtils.join(", ", ids);

db.execSQL(String.format("DELETE FROM rows WHERE ids IN (%s);", args));

Answer 4

You could use id IN (1, 2, 3, 4, ...) and directly print your array values inside the brackets:

database.delete("rows", String.format("id IN (%s)", StringUtils.join(ids, ",")));

As an alternative, I'd try to use some kind of flags column for such things (if there's something like being able to flag single entries for deletion; I don't know how your ID list is "built").

Answer 5

I have done this using this :

Sqlite Statement Syntax :

db.delete(TABLE_NAME,"COLUMN IN (?)", new String[]{commaSaparatedString})

Example based on question :

String args = TextUtils.join(", ", ids);
db.delete("rows","id IN (?)", new String[]{args})

Answer 6

What you want to use is an IN clause, something like (with 4 IDs);

database.delete("rows", "id IN (?, ?, ?, ?)", ids );

Upon request, this is (one example of) how you can do it dynamically;

database.delete("rows", 
    "id IN (" + new String(new char[ids.length-1]).replace("\0", "?,") + "?)", 
    ids);