PostgreSQL DROP TABLE statement

Preamble

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PostgreSQL DROP TABLE statement allows you to remove a table from a PostgreSQL database.

The simplest syntax for DROP TABLE in PostgreSQL

DROP TABLE table_name;

The full syntax for the PostgreSQL DROP TABLE statement

DROP [ TEMPORARY ] TABLE [ IF EXISTS ]
table_name1, table_name2,...
[ RESTRICT | CASCADE ];

Parameters and arguments of the operator

• TEMPORARY – Optional. It specifies that the DROP TABLE operator should delete only temporary tables.
• table_name – The name of the table to be deleted from the database.
• Table_name1, table_name2 – The tables to be deleted from the database if more than one table in the DROP TABLE operator is deleted.
• IF EXISTS – Optional. If specified, the DROP TABLE statement shall not cause an error if one of the tables does not exist.
• RESTRICT – Optional. If specified, the table will be deleted only if there are no other objects that depend on it.
• CASCADE – Optional. If specified, the table will be deleted and all objects that depend on it will be automatically deleted.

If you use the DROP TABLE operator in PostgreSQL to delete one or more non-existent tables, the database will generate an error (unless you specify the IF EXISTS parameter in the DROP TABLE operator).

Consider an example that shows how to remove a table using the PostgreSQL DROP TABLE operator.

Deleting a single table

First let’s look at a simple DROP TABLE example, which shows how to use DROP TABLE to delete a single table in PostgreSQL.
For example:

DROP TABLE order_details;

This DROP TABLE example will delete the table named order_details.

Deleting multiple tables

Let’s have a look at an example where we want to delete more than one table using the DROP TABLE operator:
For example:

DROP TABLE order_details, products;

This example will delete two tables, order_details, and products. If we are worried that one of the tables doesn’t exist and we don’t want to get an error, we can change our DROP TABLE operator as follows:

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS order_details, products;

This example will delete order_details and product tables and will not generate an error if one of the tables does not exist.

How to Create and Drop Tables in PostgreSQL

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