Excerpt from PostgreSQL documentation:
Restricting and cascading deletes are the two most common options. [...]
CASCADE
specifies that when a referenced row is deleted, row(s) referencing it should be automatically deleted as well.
This means that if you delete a category – referenced by books – the referencing book will also be deleted by ON DELETE CASCADE
.
Example:
CREATE SCHEMA shire;
CREATE TABLE shire.clans (
id serial PRIMARY KEY,
clan varchar
);
CREATE TABLE shire.hobbits (
id serial PRIMARY KEY,
hobbit varchar,
clan_id integer REFERENCES shire.clans (id) ON DELETE CASCADE
);
DELETE FROM
clans will CASCADE
to hobbits by REFERENCES
.
sauron@mordor> psql
sauron=# SELECT * FROM shire.clans;
id | clan
----+------------
1 | Baggins
2 | Gamgi
(2 rows)
sauron=# SELECT * FROM shire.hobbits;
id | hobbit | clan_id
----+----------+---------
1 | Bilbo | 1
2 | Frodo | 1
3 | Samwise | 2
(3 rows)
sauron=# DELETE FROM shire.clans WHERE id = 1 RETURNING *;
id | clan
----+---------
1 | Baggins
(1 row)
DELETE 1
sauron=# SELECT * FROM shire.hobbits;
id | hobbit | clan_id
----+----------+---------
3 | Samwise | 2
(1 row)
If you really need the opposite (checked by the database), you will have to write a trigger!