What are the best practices for handling foreign key constraints in PHP when deleting related records?

When deleting related records with foreign key constraints in PHP, it is important to ensure that the deletion process maintains data integrity by handling the constraints properly. One common approach is to use cascading deletes, where deleting a record automatically deletes related records. Another approach is to manually delete related records before deleting the main record. Additionally, you can disable foreign key checks temporarily during the deletion process. 

// Example of handling foreign key constraints when deleting related records

// Disable foreign key checks temporarily
$pdo->exec('SET foreign_key_checks = 0');

// Delete related records
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("DELETE FROM related_table WHERE main_record_id = :main_record_id");
$stmt->execute(['main_record_id' => $main_record_id]);

// Delete main record
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("DELETE FROM main_table WHERE id = :id");
$stmt->execute(['id' => $main_record_id]);

// Enable foreign key checks
$pdo->exec('SET foreign_key_checks = 1');

Keywords

foreign key constraints PHP deleting records related records handling

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