How-To Delete from Key-Value Map

Overview

This how-to provides instructions to delete from Key-Value Map (kv map) based on the unique key.

Before you begin

Make sure you have the following prerequisites in place:

An EOSIO development environment, for details consult the Get Started Guide
A smart contract named smrtcontract
A user defined type, struct or class, which defines the data stored in the map, named person
A kv map object, name my_map, which stores objects of type person, with unique keys of type int

Refer to the following reference implementation for your starting point:

smartcontract.hpp file

struct person {
  eosio::name account_name;
  std::string first_name;
  std::string last_name;
};

class [[eosio::contract]] smartcontract : public eosio::contract {

   using my_map_t = eosio::kv::map<"kvmap"_n, int, person>;

   public:
      using contract::contract;
      smartcontract(eosio::name receiver, eosio::name code, eosio::datastream<const char*> ds)
         : contract(receiver, code, ds) {}

   private:
      my_map_t my_map{};
};

Procedure

Complete the following steps to delete a person object with a given ID from the kv map, and print an informative message otherwise:

Create a new action in your contract, named delete, which takes as input parameters the person ID.
Use the find() function defined for the kv::map type, with the give ID as parameter, to find the person which is to be deleted.
If the person with the give ID is found use the erase() function defined for the kv::map, with the given ID as parameter, to erase the person object from the map.
If the person with the given ID is not found print an informative error message.

Refer to the following reference implementation to delete a person object from the kv map:

smartcontract.hpp file

struct person {
  eosio::name account_name;
  std::string first_name;
  std::string last_name;
};

class [[eosio::contract]] smartcontract : public eosio::contract {

   using my_map_t = eosio::kv::map<"kvmap"_n, int, person>;

   public:
      using contract::contract;
      smartcontract(eosio::name receiver, eosio::name code, eosio::datastream<const char*> ds)
         : contract(receiver, code, ds) {}

      // deletes a person based on unique id
      [[eosio::action]]
      void del(int id);

   private:
      my_map_t my_map{};
};

smartcontract.cpp file

// deletes a person based on unique id
[[eosio::action]]
void kv_map::delete(int id) {

   // search for person based on unique id
   auto itr = my_map.find(id);

   // check if person was found
   if (itr != my_map.end()) {
      // extract person from iterator and delete it
      const auto person_found = itr->second();

      // delete it from kv::map
      my_map.erase(id);
      eosio::print_f("Person (%, %, %) was successfully deleted.",
         person_found.first_name, person_found.last_name, person_found.personal_id);
   }
   else {
      eosio::print_f("Person with ID % not found.", id);
   }
}

Summary

In conclusion, the above instructions show how to delete from Key-Value Map (kv map) based on the unique key.