TRUNCATE(7)

💅 TRUNCATE(7) 💅

okay so bestie, welcome to the TRUNCATE glow-up manual, PostgreSQL 13.23 Documentation style — this is the page that teaches you how to empty a table or a whole set of tables and make it look effortless ✨

🫶 tl;dr: TRUNCATE is the "yeet all the rows" command, and it's lowkey iconic for large tables.

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

TRUNCATE [ TABLE ] [ ONLY ] name [ * ] [, ... ]
    [ RESTART IDENTITY | CONTINUE IDENTITY ] [ CASCADE | RESTRICT ]

That's the whole vibe. Periodt. 💅

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So here's the tea: TRUNCATE quickly removes all rows from a set of tables. It has the same effect as an unqualified DELETE on each table, but since it doesn't actually scan the tables, it is faster. And bestie, it reclaims disk space immediately — no need to wait around for a subsequent VACUUM operation. This is most useful on large tables. Literally the main character energy of bulk deletion. ✨

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🎀 PARAMETERS 🎀

• name — the name (optionally schema-qualified) of a table to truncate. If ONLY is specified before the table name, only that table is truncated. If ONLY is not specified, the table and all its descendant tables (if any) are truncated. Optionally, * can be specified after the table name to explicitly indicate that descendant tables are included. iykyk 💫
• RESTART IDENTITY — automatically restart sequences owned by columns of the truncated table(s). Slay, fresh start energy. 🔄
• CONTINUE IDENTITY — do not change the values of sequences. This is the default, no cap. ✋
• CASCADE — automatically truncate all tables that have foreign-key references to any of the named tables, or to any tables added to the group due to CASCADE. Careful though, this one's highkey dangerous 🚨
• RESTRICT — refuse to truncate if any of the tables have foreign-key references from tables that are not listed in the command. This is the default, and it's giving protective bestie vibes. 🛡️

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👑 NOTES 👑

Okay, listen up, because this is the part where I tell you the rules of the game. 💅

You must have the TRUNCATE privilege on a table to truncate it. No privilege, no party. periodt.

TRUNCATE acquires an ACCESS EXCLUSIVE lock on each table it operates on, which blocks all other concurrent operations on the table. When RESTART IDENTITY is specified, any sequences that are to be restarted are likewise locked exclusively. If concurrent access to a table is required, then the DELETE command should be used instead. Not me telling you to use DELETE when you want concurrency, but fr fr. 😭

TRUNCATE cannot be used on a table that has foreign-key references from other tables, unless all such tables are also truncated in the same command. Checking validity in such cases would require table scans, and the whole point is not to do one. The CASCADE option can be used to automatically include all dependent tables — but be very careful when using this option, or else you might lose data you did not intend to! Note in particular that when the table to be truncated is a partition, siblings partitions are left untouched, but cascading occurs to all referencing tables and all their partitions with no distinction. 💀

🚨 WARNING: CASCADE will absolutely snatch tables you didn't even know were related. Double-check before you commit, bestie. Your data will not be coming back.

TRUNCATE will not fire any ON DELETE triggers that might exist for the tables. But it will fire ON TRUNCATE triggers. If ON TRUNCATE triggers are defined for any of the tables, then all BEFORE TRUNCATE triggers are fired before any truncation happens, and all AFTER TRUNCATE triggers are fired after the last truncation is performed and any sequences are reset. The triggers will fire in the order that the tables are to be processed (first those listed in the command, and then any that were added due to cascading). Trigger order is giving main character energy, and it matters. ⭐

TRUNCATE is not MVCC-safe. After truncation, the table will appear empty to concurrent transactions, if they are using a snapshot taken before the truncation occurred. See Section 13.5 for more details. Not me explaining MVCC on a truncate page, but here we are. 🤷‍♀️

TRUNCATE is transaction-safe with respect to the data in the tables: the truncation will be safely rolled back if the surrounding transaction does not commit. So if you mess up, you can take it back. Thank u, next. 💖

When RESTART IDENTITY is specified, the implied ALTER SEQUENCE RESTART operations are also done transactionally; that is, they will be rolled back if the surrounding transaction does not commit. Be aware that if any additional sequence operations are done on the restarted sequences before the transaction rolls back, the effects of these operations on the sequences will be rolled back, but not their effects on currval(); that is, after the transaction currval() will continue to reflect the last sequence value obtained inside the failed transaction, even though the sequence itself may no longer be consistent with that. This is similar to the usual behavior of currval() after a failed transaction. 😵‍💫 (Yeah, that's a mouthful, but it's important — sequences and currval() have a weird little situationship after rollback.)

TRUNCATE is not currently supported for foreign tables. This implies that if a specified table has any descendant tables that are foreign, the command will fail. No foreign tables, no exceptions. 🙅‍♀️

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🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

Truncate the tables bigtable and fattable:

TRUNCATE bigtable, fattable;

The same, and also reset any associated sequence generators:

TRUNCATE bigtable, fattable RESTART IDENTITY;

Truncate the table othertable, and cascade to any tables that reference othertable via foreign-key constraints:

TRUNCATE othertable CASCADE;

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🧚 COMPATIBILITY 🧚

The SQL:2008 standard includes a TRUNCATE command with the syntax TRUNCATE TABLE tablename. The clauses CONTINUE IDENTITY/RESTART IDENTITY also appear in that standard, but have slightly different though related meanings. Some of the concurrency behavior of this command is left implementation-defined by the standard, so the above notes should be considered and compared with other implementations if necessary. Basically: standards are cute but implementations have ✨flavor✨. 🌍

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🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

• DELETE(7) — the other way to remove rows, but more dramatic and less efficient for bulk. 💅

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sign-off bestie style 💖

This was the TRUNCATE(7) page from PostgreSQL 13.23, dated 2025 — literally iconic, no cap. Now go forth and truncate responsibly, queen. 👑✨🎀