MySQL :: MySQL 8.0 Reference Manual :: 13.1.32 DROP TABLE Syntax

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13.1.32 DROP TABLE Syntax

DROP [TEMPORARY] TABLE [IF EXISTS]
    tbl_name [, tbl_name] ...
    [RESTRICT | CASCADE]

DROP TABLE removes one or more tables. You must have the DROP privilege for each table.

Be careful with this statement! It removes the table definition and all table data. For a partitioned table, it permanently removes the table definition, all its partitions, and all data stored in those partitions. It also removes partition definitions associated with the dropped table.

DROP TABLE causes an implicit commit, except when used with the TEMPORARY keyword. See Section 13.3.3, “Statements That Cause an Implicit Commit”.

Important

When a table is dropped, privileges granted specifically for the table are not automatically dropped. They must be dropped manually. See Section 13.7.1.6, “GRANT Syntax”.

If any tables named in the argument list do not exist, the statement fails with an error indicating by name which nonexisting tables it was unable to drop, and no changes are made.

Use IF EXISTS to prevent an error from occurring for tables that do not exist. Instead of an error, a NOTE is generated for each nonexistent table; these notes can be displayed with SHOW WARNINGS. See Section 13.7.6.40, “SHOW WARNINGS Syntax”.

IF EXISTS can also be useful for dropping tables in unusual circumstances under which there is an entry in the data dictionary but no table managed by the storage engine. (For example, if an abnormal server exit occurs after removal of the table from the storage engine but before removal of the data dictionary entry.)

The TEMPORARY keyword has the following effects:

The statement drops only TEMPORARY tables.
The statement does not cause an implicit commit.
No access rights are checked. A TEMPORARY table is visible only with the session that created it, so no check is necessary.

Using TEMPORARY is a good way to ensure that you do not accidentally drop a non-TEMPORARY table.

The RESTRICT and CASCADE keywords do nothing. They are permitted to make porting easier from other database systems.

DROP TABLE is not supported with all innodb_force_recovery settings. See Section 15.20.2, “Forcing InnoDB Recovery”.

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User Comments

User comments in this section are, as the name implies, provided by MySQL users. The MySQL documentation team is not responsible for, nor do they endorse, any of the information provided here.

Posted by Oliver Frick on August 22, 2011

You can use "show tables from mysqldb1 like 'name%' "
And then copy paste into a text editor and build a comma separated list to feed "drop table "... For me this is faster than write the procedure :)

Posted by Peter Hine on May 7, 2012

for table in `echo show tables in piwik\; | mysql | grep piwik_archive_`;do echo drop table $table\; | mysql -D piwik; done

linux example for removing all the archive tables in a database called piwik to simulate the "drop table like 'piwik_archive_%'" example above

Posted by Brendan Byrd on July 22, 2015

It should be noted that the TEMPORARY keyword is also allowed on slave servers, especially non-existent temporary tables. For example, if 'tempo' is an existing temp table for a non-admin user on a slave:

> DROP TABLE IF EXISTS tempo;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

> DROP TABLE IF EXISTS tempo;
ERROR 1290 (HY000): The MySQL server is running with the --read-only option so it cannot execute this statement

> DROP TEMPORARY TABLE IF EXISTS tempo;
Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.00 sec)

MySQL knows that the DROP is for a temp table if the table exists, but assumes that the DROP is for a non-temp table if the table doesn't exist, unless the TEMPORARY keyword is used.