MariaDB/MySQL DELETE Got You Locked Down? Here's How to Break Free (InnoDB)

• DELETE statement: This is a SQL command used to remove rows from a database table.
• Locking: When a DELETE statement runs, InnoDB locks the rows it examines to ensure data consistency. This prevents other operations from modifying those rows while the deletion is happening.
• InnoDB: This is a popular storage engine used in MariaDB and MySQL for tables. It emphasizes data integrity and uses locking mechanisms to achieve this.

While you can't completely eliminate locking during DELETE, there are ways to minimize its impact:

Here are some key points to remember:

• InnoDB uses different lock types, but DELETE typically uses record locks that prevent writes (modifications) to the specific rows being deleted.
• Other transactions can still read the rows being deleted even with the lock.

DELETE FROM myTable
WHERE id = ?  -- Assuming "id" has an index

This code snippet deletes rows from the table myTable where the id column matches the provided value. Since there's an index on the id column, the database can efficiently locate the rows to be deleted, minimizing the number of rows locked.

Here's another example using batch deletion:

-- Assuming you want to delete rows where "status" is "inactive" in batches of 100
DELETE FROM myTable
WHERE status = "inactive"
LIMIT 100;

-- You can repeat this DELETE statement in a loop until no more rows are deleted

This code deletes a maximum of 100 rows at a time where the status is "inactive". This helps reduce the time other transactions are blocked by the lock.

1. Non-locking Reads with Logical Deletion:

2. Partitioning:

3. Replication with Asynchronous Deletion:

4. Alternative Storage Engines: