# Performing a Conditional Delete
<a name="ConditionalDelete"></a>

 Conditional delete enables you to delete an item or one or more attributes of an item if the existing value of an attribute matches a value that you specify. If value does not match or is not present, the insert or update is rejected with a 409 (MultiValuedAttribute, ConditionalCheckFailed ) or 404 (AttributeDoesNotExist) error code. 

**Note**  
 Conditional deletes can only match single-valued attributes. 

 To perform a conditional delete, specify the expected name and expected value for a `DeleteAttributes` operation. If the specified attribute does not exist, Amazon SimpleDB performs the delete. 

In the following example, Amazon SimpleDB deletes the `JumboFez` product from the `MyDomain` domain if the quantity of the product reaches zero.

```
https://sdb.amazonaws.com/
?Action=DeleteAttributes
&DomainName=MyDomain
&ItemName=JumboFez
&Expected.1.Name=quantity
&Expected.1.Value=0
&AWSAccessKeyId=[valid access key id]
&SignatureVersion=2
&SignatureMethod=HmacSHA256
&Timestamp=2010-01-25T15%3A03%3A05-07%3A00
&Version=2009-04-15
&Signature=[valid signature]
```

If the condition is met, Amazon SimpleDB returns output similar to the following.

```
<PutAttributesResponse>
  <ResponseMetadata>
    <RequestId>490206ce-8292-456c-a00f-61b335eb202b</RequestId>
    <BoxUsage>0.0000219907</BoxUsage>
  </ResponseMetadata>
</PutAttributesResponse>
```