# Delete Documents by Reference

If you identify one or more documents by their reference field, you can delete them from the IDOL Content component data index by sending a `DREDELETEREF` action (case sensitive) from your Web browser:

    http://ContentHost:indexPort/DREDELETEREF?Docs=docReferences&Field=fields&DREDbName=databaseName

where:

`ContentHost` | is the IP address or host name of the machine on which the IDOL Content component is installed.
`indexPort` | is the IDOL Content component index port (specified as `IndexPort` in the `[Server]` section of the IDOL Content component configuration file).
`docReferences` | is a list of the (percent-encoded) references of the documents that you want to delete. If the references contain plus symbols (+) or spaces, percent-encode each reference, then separate multiple references with plus symbols (there must be no space before or after a plus symbol).
`fields` | is the field that contains the reference specified in the `Docs` parameter when a document has more than one reference. Separate multiple references with commas or spaces (there must be no space before or after a comma). For example, the following action:
    DREDELETEREF?Docs=myref1.txt&Field=REFFIELD1
deletes a document that contains the following references:
    #DREFIELD REFFIELD1="myref1.txt"
    #DREFIELD REFFIELD2="myref2.txt"
but does not delete a document that contains the following references:
    #DREFIELD REFFIELD1="myref2.txt"
    #DREFIELD REFFIELD2="myref1.txt"
`databaseName` | is the name of the database that the documents that you want to delete belong to. This parameter is optional. If you do not specify a database, Content deletes the document from all databases that contain it.

For example:

    http://12.3.4.56:20001/DREDELETEREF?Docs=http%3A%2F%2Fnews%2Enewssite%2Ecom%2Findex%2Ehtml+http%3A%2F%2Fnews%2Enewssite%2Ecom%2Fcoverstory%2Ehtml

This action uses port `20001` to delete the documents with the specified URLs from Content, which is located on a machine with the IP address `12.3.4.56`.

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