# Delete Records Using sObject Relationships

Deletes a parent record based on the specified object, record ID, and relationship field name. Only a child-to-parent relationship can be traversed when you delete records.

If the `fields` parameter is used with fields that don’t exist or aren’t visible to the consumer by field-level security, a 400 error response is returned. For other error messages, see [Status Codes and Error Responses](/docs/platform/api-rest/guide/errorcodes.md).

## Syntax

**URI:** `/services/data/vXX.X/sobjects/sObject/id/relationshipFieldName`

**Formats:** JSON, XML

**HTTP Method:** DELETE

**Authentication:** `Authorization: Bearer token`

**Parameters**

| Parameter               | Description                                                                                                                                        |
| ----------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `sObject`               | The name of the object. For example, `Contact`.                                                                                                    |
| `id`                    | The identifier of the record. For example, `003R0000005hDFYIA2`, the contact ID.                                                                   |
| `relationshipFieldName` | The name of the field that contains the relationship. For example, `Account`. Account is the name of the relationship on the child Contact object. |

When you delete a parent record, it deletes all child records that have a master-detail relationship to the parent record.

## Example

For examples of using sObject Relationships to delete a relationship record, see [Traverse Relationships with Friendly URLs](/docs/platform/api-rest/guide/dome-relationship-traversal.md#traverse-relationships-with-friendly-urls).

**See Also**

- [Object Reference for the Salesforce Platform](https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.object_reference.meta/object_reference/)