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PRB: ADO Delete Method May Delete More Rows Than Expected

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This article was previously published under Q294850

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Symptoms

The Delete method of the ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) Recordset object may delete more than the rows identified for deletion if the following conditions are true:
  • You are connecting to SQL Server as a data source.
  • You are using the MSDASQL OLE DB provider.
  • The value of CursorType is not adOpenDynamic.
  • Columns specified in the resultset do not contain a unique field.
  • The table against which you are querying has no primary key.
If all of these conditions are met and a Delete method is called on the current record in the recordset, all matching records returned by the query (instead of just the current record) will be marked for deletion.

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Status

This behavior is by design.

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More information

The following Microsoft Visual Basic sample code demonstrates this behavior: 
Private Sub Command1_Click()
Dim cn As New ADODB.Connection
Dim rs As New ADODB.Recordset

cn.Open "Provider=MSDASQL.1;DSN=YourDSN;UID=YourUserId;PWD=YourPassword;"

On Error Resume Next
cn.Execute "drop table RSDelete"
On Error GoTo 0
  
cn.Execute "CREATE TABLE RSDelete (ID int NOT NULL IDENTITY (1, 1),  TextField char(10) NOT NULL, OtherField char(10) )"

rs.Open "SELECT * FROM RSDelete", cn, adOpenDynamic, adLockPessimistic
rs.AddNew
rs("TextField") = "Value1"
rs("OtherField") = "Dummy A"
rs.Update
rs.AddNew
rs("TextField") = "Value1"
rs("OtherField") = "Dummy B"
rs.Update
rs.AddNew
rs("TextField") = "Value2"
rs("OtherField") = "Dummy C"
rs.Update
rs.AddNew
rs("TextField") = "Value2"
rs("OtherField") = "Dummy D"
rs.Update
rs.Close

Debug.Print "Before delete"
Debug.Print "============="
Call show_rows(rs, cn)

rs.Open "SELECT TextField FROM RSDelete where ID = 1", cn, adOpenStatic, adLockPessimistic
rs.MoveFirst
rs.Delete
rs.Close

Debug.Print "After delete"
Debug.Print "============"
Call show_rows(rs, cn)

cn.Close

End Sub

Private Sub show_rows(rs As ADODB.Recordset, cn As ADODB.Connection)
rs.Open "SELECT * FROM RSDelete", cn, adOpenStatic, adLockPessimistic
Do While Not rs.EOF
    For i = 0 To rs.Fields.Count - 1
        Debug.Print rs(i)
    Next
    Debug.Print " "
    rs.MoveNext
Loop
rs.Close
End Sub
If you capture an ODBC Trace while the above code is running, you can see the following DELETE statement:
"DELETE FROM RSDelete WHERE (TextField=?)"
If you modify the query in the above code as follows: 
rs.Open "SELECT * FROM RSDelete where ID = 1", cn, adOpenStatic, adLockPessimistic
rs.MoveFirst
rs.Delete
rs.Close
you will see the following DELETE statement in the ODBC Trace:
"DELETE FROM RSDelete WHERE (ID=? AND TextField=? AND OtherField=?)"
In the latter case, the parameters are bound to the respective columns in each row.

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References

For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
274551� HOWTO: Generate an ODBC Trace w/ ODBC Data Source Administrator
193946� HOWTO: Demo of ADO AddNew, Update, Delete, Find and Filter

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Keywords: KB294850, kbprb

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Article Info
Article ID : 294850
Revision : 3
Created on : 5/12/2003
Published on : 5/12/2003
Exists online : False
Views : 544