Re: delete cascade

paul c wrote:

> paul c wrote:
>

>> Bob Badour wrote:

>>> No. One states that deleting the invoice automatically deletes any 
>>> items that exist. The other states that one may not delete an invoice 
>>> when any items exist.
>>
>> Thanks, that clears up my confusion.  Still, it strikes me as more an 
>> attitude than a logical interpretation.  If I could, I'd rather wonder 
>> how to declare a reference from the logical complement of invoices to 
>> the complement of items!

To bring this back to where it started, you suggested that all foreign key references could cascade deletes. However, consider what would happen if one had a reference to a relation describing allowed statuses or geopolitical boundaries.

Before one deletes the 'Pending' status, one would want to make sure no invoices are pending. Deleting thousands of pending invoices would be a mistake.

Likewise, before deleting West Germany, one would want to make sure all the German invoices are updated to the new reunified Germany first. Received on Tue Apr 17 2007 - 14:52:36 CEST