Delete rows until X number are left?

[grippat]

How would I write a MySQL statement that will delete all the rows in a table until there's X number left, say 200? Also, if I add ORDER BY rand() would it delete random rows until X number are left? It's sounds malicious I know, but it's just for a demo site we made that we don't want users to have access to ALL the data.

[justsomeguy]

You don't use ORDER BY with delete, you use WHERE. There's not one statement to delete rows like you want, you'll need to write a stored procedure that can use logic to determine how many rows there are and to keep deleting a row until there are X left. Check the MySQL manual for stored procedures.

[Synook]

ORDER BY in a DELETE query (at least in MySQL) specifies the order in which to delete records.

[justsomeguy]

I see that, I guess you would use that with LIMIT to delete the top X records in a certain order.