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MySQL DROP TABLE Keyword



The MySQL DROP TABLE keyword is used to delete a table from the database. It drops all the data, indexes, triggers, constraints and permission specifications for the specified table.

Note: Be careful before dropping a table. Once deleted, all information stored in that table will be lost forever!.

Syntax

The syntax of using DROP TABLE keyword in MySQL is given below:

DROP TABLE [IF EXISTS] table_name;

The IF EXISTS is an optional parameter that conditionally drops table only if it exists on the database. If a table is deleted which does not exist, it will raise an error.

Example:

Consider a database containing a table called Employee with the following records:

EmpIDNameCityAgeSalary
1JohnLondon253000
2MarryNew York242750
3JoParis272800
4KimAmsterdam303100
5RameshNew Delhi283000
6HuangBeijing282800

The description of the table can be checked using DESC command as shown below:

DESC Employee;

This will produce the result as shown below:

FieldTypeNullKeyDefaultExtra
EmpIDint(11)NoPRI
Namevarchar(255)No
Cityvarchar(100)YesNULL
Ageint(11)YesNULL
Salarydecimal(18,2)YesNULL

To delete this table, the following statement can be used:

DROP TABLE Employee;

After dropping the table, the DESC command will throw following error:

DESC Employee;	
Result: Table 'testDB.Employee' doesn't exist

Here, testDB is the name of database which initially had Employee table.


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