Re: cascade problems

On Thu, 19 Sep 2002, Michael Zouroudis wrote:

> for those who can help,
>
> on my database i have two tables, organization and transaction, listed here;
> -------------------------------------
> create table organization(
> organ_person_id serial primary key,
> asset_id int,
> fname text,
> lname text,
> phone varchar(15),
> email varchar(20),
> constraint organization_asset_id_fk foreign key(asset_id) references
> assets(asset_id));
>
> create table transaction(
> transaction_id serial primary key,
> trans_date timestamp default current_timestamp,
> return_date timestamp,
> organ_person_id int,
> constraint transaction_organ_person_id_fk foreign key(organ_person_id)
> references organization(organ_person_id) on delete cascade );
>
> ---------------------------------
>
> what i want is for a delete on transaction to make a delete on
> organization where the organ_person_id s match up,with a query like;
>
> *delete from transaction where organ_person_id = 15;*
>
> but this is not happening. all it does is delete from transaction, and
> doesn't touch organization. am i doing something wrong?

The ON [DELETE|UPDATE] <action> clauses refer to the referenced table
not the referencing table. The constraint says that if you delete
an organization the transactions associated with that organization
should be removed.