SQL - DROP or DELETE Table

The SQL DROP TABLE statement is used to remove a table definition and all data, indexes, triggers, constraints, and permission specifications for that table.
NOTE: You have to be careful while using this command because once a table is deleted then all the information available in the table would also be lost forever.

Syntax:

Basic syntax of DROP TABLE statement is as follows:

DROP TABLE table_name;

Example:

Let us first verify CUSTOMERS table, and then we would delete it from the database:

SQL> DESC CUSTOMERS; +---------+---------------+------+-----+---------+-------+ | Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra | +---------+---------------+------+-----+---------+-------+ | ID | int(11) | NO | PRI | | | | NAME | varchar(20) | NO | | | | | AGE | int(11) | NO | | | | | ADDRESS | char(25) | YES | | NULL | | | SALARY | decimal(18,2) | YES | | NULL | | +---------+---------------+------+-----+---------+-------+ 5 rows in set (0.00 sec)

This means CUSTOMERS table is available in the database, so let us drop it as follows:

SQL> DROP TABLE CUSTOMERS; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)

Now if you would try DESC command then you would get error as follows:

SQL> DESC CUSTOMERS; ERROR 1146 (42S02): Table 'TEST.CUSTOMERS' doesn't exist

Here TEST is database name which we are using for our examples.