CASCADE DELETE just once

No. To do it just once you would simply write the delete statement for the table you want to cascade.

DELETE FROM some_child_table WHERE some_fk_field IN (SELECT some_id FROM some_Table);
DELETE FROM some_table;

If I understand correctly, you should be able to do what you want by dropping the foreign key constraint, adding a new one (which will cascade), doing your stuff, and recreating the restricting foreign key constraint.

For example:

testing=# create table a (id integer primary key);
NOTICE:  CREATE TABLE / PRIMARY KEY will create implicit index "a_pkey" for table "a"
CREATE TABLE
testing=# create table b (id integer references a);
CREATE TABLE

-- put some data in the table
testing=# insert into a values(1);
INSERT 0 1
testing=# insert into a values(2);
INSERT 0 1
testing=# insert into b values(2);
INSERT 0 1
testing=# insert into b values(1);
INSERT 0 1

-- restricting works
testing=# delete from a where id=1;
ERROR:  update or delete on table "a" violates foreign key constraint "b_id_fkey" on table "b"
DETAIL:  Key (id)=(1) is still referenced from table "b".

-- find the name of the constraint
testing=# \d b;
       Table "public.b"
 Column |  Type   | Modifiers 
--------+---------+-----------
 id     | integer | 
Foreign-key constraints:
    "b_id_fkey" FOREIGN KEY (id) REFERENCES a(id)

-- drop the constraint
testing=# alter table b drop constraint b_a_id_fkey;
ALTER TABLE

-- create a cascading one
testing=# alter table b add FOREIGN KEY (id) references a(id) on delete cascade; 
ALTER TABLE

testing=# delete from a where id=1;
DELETE 1
testing=# select * from a;
 id 
----
  2
(1 row)

testing=# select * from b;
 id 
----
  2
(1 row)

-- it works, do your stuff.
-- [stuff]

-- recreate the previous state
testing=# \d b;
       Table "public.b"
 Column |  Type   | Modifiers 
--------+---------+-----------
 id     | integer | 
Foreign-key constraints:
    "b_id_fkey" FOREIGN KEY (id) REFERENCES a(id) ON DELETE CASCADE

testing=# alter table b drop constraint b_id_fkey;
ALTER TABLE
testing=# alter table b add FOREIGN KEY (id) references a(id) on delete restrict; 
ALTER TABLE

Of course, you should abstract stuff like that into a procedure, for the sake of your mental health.

Yeah, as others have said, there's no convenient 'DELETE FROM my_table ... CASCADE' (or equivalent). To delete non-cascading foreign key-protected child records and their referenced ancestors, your options include:

• Perform all the deletions explicitly, one query at a time, starting with child tables (though this won't fly if you've got circular references); or
• Perform all the deletions explicitly in a single (potentially massive) query; or
• Assuming your non-cascading foreign key constraints were created as 'ON DELETE NO ACTION DEFERRABLE', perform all the deletions explicitly in a single transaction; or
• Temporarily drop the 'no action' and 'restrict' foreign key constraints in the graph, recreate them as CASCADE, delete the offending ancestors, drop the foreign key constraints again, and finally recreate them as they were originally (thus temporarily weakening the integrity of your data); or
• Something probably equally fun.

It's on purpose that circumventing foreign key constraints isn't made convenient, I assume; but I do understand why in particular circumstances you'd want to do it. If it's something you'll be doing with some frequency, and if you're willing to flout the wisdom of DBAs everywhere, you may want to automate it with a procedure.

I came here a few months ago looking for an answer to the "CASCADE DELETE just once" question (originally asked over a decade ago!). I got some mileage out of Joe Love's clever solution (and Thomas C. G. de Vilhena's variant), but in the end my use case had particular requirements (handling of intra-table circular references, for one) that forced me to take a different approach. That approach ultimately became recursively_delete (PG 10.10).

I've been using recursively_delete in production for a while, now, and finally feel (warily) confident enough to make it available to others who might wind up here looking for ideas. As with Joe Love's solution, it allows you to delete entire graphs of data as if all foreign key constraints in your database were momentarily set to CASCADE, but offers a couple additional features:

• Provides an ASCII preview of the deletion target and its graph of dependents.
• Performs deletion in a single query using recursive CTEs.
• Handles circular dependencies, intra- and inter-table.
• Handles composite keys.
• Skips 'set default' and 'set null' constraints.

I took Joe Love's answer and rewrote it using the IN operator with sub-selects instead of = to make the function faster (according to Hubbitus's suggestion):

create or replace function delete_cascade(p_schema varchar, p_table varchar, p_keys varchar, p_subquery varchar default null, p_foreign_keys varchar[] default array[]::varchar[])
 returns integer as $$
declare

    rx record;
    rd record;
    v_sql varchar;
    v_subquery varchar;
    v_primary_key varchar;
    v_foreign_key varchar;
    v_rows integer;
    recnum integer;

begin

    recnum := 0;
    select ccu.column_name into v_primary_key
        from
        information_schema.table_constraints  tc
        join information_schema.constraint_column_usage AS ccu ON ccu.constraint_name = tc.constraint_name and ccu.constraint_schema=tc.constraint_schema
        and tc.constraint_type='PRIMARY KEY'
        and tc.table_name=p_table
        and tc.table_schema=p_schema;

    for rx in (
        select kcu.table_name as foreign_table_name, 
        kcu.column_name as foreign_column_name, 
        kcu.table_schema foreign_table_schema,
        kcu2.column_name as foreign_table_primary_key
        from information_schema.constraint_column_usage ccu
        join information_schema.table_constraints tc on tc.constraint_name=ccu.constraint_name and tc.constraint_catalog=ccu.constraint_catalog and ccu.constraint_schema=ccu.constraint_schema 
        join information_schema.key_column_usage kcu on kcu.constraint_name=ccu.constraint_name and kcu.constraint_catalog=ccu.constraint_catalog and kcu.constraint_schema=ccu.constraint_schema
        join information_schema.table_constraints tc2 on tc2.table_name=kcu.table_name and tc2.table_schema=kcu.table_schema
        join information_schema.key_column_usage kcu2 on kcu2.constraint_name=tc2.constraint_name and kcu2.constraint_catalog=tc2.constraint_catalog and kcu2.constraint_schema=tc2.constraint_schema
        where ccu.table_name=p_table  and ccu.table_schema=p_schema
        and TC.CONSTRAINT_TYPE='FOREIGN KEY'
        and tc2.constraint_type='PRIMARY KEY'
)
    loop
        v_foreign_key := rx.foreign_table_schema||'.'||rx.foreign_table_name||'.'||rx.foreign_column_name;
        v_subquery := 'select "'||rx.foreign_table_primary_key||'" as key from '||rx.foreign_table_schema||'."'||rx.foreign_table_name||'"
             where "'||rx.foreign_column_name||'"in('||coalesce(p_keys, p_subquery)||') for update';
        if p_foreign_keys @> ARRAY[v_foreign_key] then
            --raise notice 'circular recursion detected';
        else
            p_foreign_keys := array_append(p_foreign_keys, v_foreign_key);
            recnum:= recnum + delete_cascade(rx.foreign_table_schema, rx.foreign_table_name, null, v_subquery, p_foreign_keys);
            p_foreign_keys := array_remove(p_foreign_keys, v_foreign_key);
        end if;
    end loop;

    begin
        if (coalesce(p_keys, p_subquery) <> '') then
            v_sql := 'delete from '||p_schema||'."'||p_table||'" where "'||v_primary_key||'"in('||coalesce(p_keys, p_subquery)||')';
            --raise notice '%',v_sql;
            execute v_sql;
            get diagnostics v_rows = row_count;
            recnum := recnum + v_rows;
        end if;
        exception when others then recnum=0;
    end;

    return recnum;

end;
$$
language PLPGSQL;

The delete with the cascade option only applied to tables with foreign keys defined. If you do a delete, and it says you cannot because it would violate the foreign key constraint, the cascade will cause it to delete the offending rows.

If you want to delete associated rows in this way, you will need to define the foreign keys first. Also, remember that unless you explicitly instruct it to begin a transaction, or you change the defaults, it will do an auto-commit, which could be very time consuming to clean up.