the rows will only be deleted from t1 and t2. t3 is needed to select the appropriate rows, but should not be affected by the delete.
i don't know where you got that query from, but since the mysql manual states the identical query, i wonder why you didnt read above or below it ;-)
You can specify multiple tables in a DELETE statement to delete rows from one or more tables depending on the particular condition in the WHERE clause. However, you cannot use ORDER BY or LIMIT in a multiple-table DELETE. The table_references clause lists the tables involved in the join. Its syntax is described in Section 13.2.7.1, “JOIN Syntax”.
For the first multiple-table syntax, only matching rows from the tables listed before the FROM clause are deleted. For the second multiple-table syntax, only matching rows from the tables listed in the FROM clause (before the USING clause) are deleted. The effect is that you can delete rows from many tables at the same time and have additional tables that are used only for searching:
DELETE t1, t2 FROM t1, t2, t3 WHERE t1.id=t2.id AND t2.id=t3.id;
Or:
DELETE FROM t1, t2 USING t1, t2, t3 WHERE t1.id=t2.id AND t2.id=t3.id;
These statements use all three tables when searching for rows to delete, but delete matching rows only from tables t1 and t2.
source: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/delete.html
