DELETE with JOIN syntax

From: Brian Wong <bwlist(at)gmail(dot)com>
To: pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: DELETE with JOIN syntax
Date: 2005-07-27 19:28:36
Message-ID: e1c904a405072712282b1fbbfe@mail.gmail.com
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I am currently migrating from MySQL to PostgreSQL and I have found
that some queries do not work. For instance,

DELETE t1 FROM t1 LEFT JOIN t2 USING (column_id) WHERE t2.column_id IS NULL;

works in MySQL. This works as expected even though the MySQL
documentation does not mention the option of having a table between
the keywords DELETE and FROM.

I am trying to achieve the same affect for PostgreSQL so I tried

DELETE FROM t1 LEFT JOIN t2 USING (column_id) WHERE t2.column_id IS NULL;

and it did not work. Can someone explain to me exactly what is wrong
with this syntax?
Is a table expression produced by the JOIN allowed for a DELETE?
Im thinking that this would not work because the table expression is
not a real table and it would not make sense for DELETE to accept such
a parameter. How can I rewrite this query to achieve the same affect?
Thanks.

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