@ridhwaans 👋

delete will always throw an exception so it's best to handle it via try/catch to keep it to a single query.

You have a one to one relation and you may want to delete the Volunteer when you delete the related User (but that depends on what you want to do). If it is the case, you can add onDelete: Cascade when specifying your relation :

model User {
  id           String      @id
  email        String      @unique
  firstName    String
  lastName     String
  approved     Boolean     @default(false)
  usersDb      Boolean     @default(false)
  volunteersDb Boolean     @default(false)
  createdAt    DateTime    @default(now())
  updatedAt    DateTime    @updatedAt
  avatarUrl    String?     @default("")
  isActive     Boolean     @default(true)
  lastLoggedIn DateTime    @default(now())
  role         String      @default("viewer")
  volunteer    Volunteer[]
}

model Volunteer {
  id                       String   @id @default(uuid())
  userId                   String
  dbUser                   User     @relation(fields: [userId], references: [id], onDelete: Cascade)

Then, when you will delete a user, the corresponding Volunteer will be automatically deleted too.

See documentation for possible actions : https://www.prisma.io/docs/concepts/components/prisma-schema/relations/referential-actions

Hi @rgaino 👋

Thank you for raising this question.

The behavior you're experiencing is indeed how Prisma currently operates. When you attempt to delete a record that doesn't exist using the delete method, Prisma throws an exception. This is because the delete method is designed to operate on a single record and expects that record to exist. If the record doesn't exist, it throws an error to indicate that the operation couldn't be completed as expected.

This behavior can be useful in scenarios where the absence of a record is an exceptional circumstance and should halt the execution of your code. However, it can indeed lead to additional database operations if you need to check for the existence of a record before attempting to delete it.

There have been discussions and open issues in the Prisma community about this behavior. For example, in this GitHub issue #10142, a user suggested adding updateOrThrow() and deleteOrThrow() methods to Prisma Client, which would throw an exception if the record to update or delete doesn't exist. In GitHub issue #9460, a user suggested adding a deleteIfExists method, which would delete a record if it exists and do nothing if it doesn't, without throwing an error.

As a workaround, you can use the deleteMany method instead of delete. The deleteMany method doesn't throw an error if no records are found that match the where clause. It simply returns a count of the records deleted, which would be 0 if no matching records were found.
Here's an example:

const deleteResult = await prisma.types.deleteMany({
  where: {
    bigserial: "non-existent id",
  },
});

In this case, deleteResult.count would be 0 if no records were found that match the where clause.

Please note that this is a workaround and might not be suitable for all use cases. Always consider the implications of using deleteMany instead of delete, especially in scenarios where deleting multiple records could have unintended side effects.

If this answers your question, it would be great if you could mark this Discussion as answered to indicate that it has been resolved.

Otherwise please let us know how else we can help you further or close the Discussion if it was resolved in some other way 🙏