This tutorial shows you how to delete multiple records in a table with the help of checkboxes. Once in place, all you need to do is to check the checkboxes next to the records you want to delete from the database, and click the Delete button button near the end of your page.

Create a recordset that selects the Primary Key (usually this is the AutoNumber field) of your database table and a field that will enable you to easily identify which record is associated with the value from the Primary Key. For example if I want to delete my tutorials, I would select the ID field (which is the Primary Key) and the Title field for identification purposes.



Then, construct a table to hold the tutorial titles and checkboxes in place, and make sure that the entire table is placed within a form. Showing the ID is an option that has no consequence on what we are going to do. Set the action of the form to point to another ASP page (page2.asp) that will perform the actual deleting.


We will name the checkox as Checkbox for clarity's sake, and assign to its Checked Value the AutoNumber ID field from our recordset. Then add a repeat region to the <TR></TR> and select Show All Records. Now save this page as page1.asp and move on to create another page call page2.asp.

On this new page create a Command by selecting Command from the Data Bindings pallete. We will be doing our batch delete using SQL set notation. Using set notation will allow us to process a number of records (rows) in just one statement.

As an example if we selected records with the ID of 1, 2, 5 and 7 as the ones we want to delete, essentially we will be looking at an SQL like this:

DELETE FROM Tutorials WHERE ID = 1 OR ID = 2 OR ID = 5 OR ID =7

Using set notation the same can be achieved using a much more elegant form of SQL:

DELETE FROM Tutorials WHERE ID IN (1,2,5,7)

Notice also how SQL uses the parenthesis to denote the beginning and end of a set, as well as the use of "IN" as comparator instead of "=".

Now that we have covered the basics of set notations let us proceed by creating the delete Command using UltraDev. Below is a snapshot of the completed Command Object Dialog. Note that I have used a variable call varSelect and assigned to it a run-time value of Request.Form("Checkbox"). Make sure that varSelect is enclosed within a pair of parenthesis.


The final step would be to specify a page to redirect to after the batch deletion has been performed. Just switch over to the HTML Source window and type in the name of the page you wish to redirect to. You can leave the HTML there as it is or delete them, but it makes no difference.