DROP_TYPE(7pg15)

💅 DROP TYPE 💅

okay bestie, so this is the DROP TYPE page from the PostgreSQL 15.19 Documentation — it's the one about yeeting a data type out of existence. it's short, it's sweet, and it absolutely has opinions about who's allowed to press the delete button 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

DROP_TYPE — remove a data type 🗑️✨

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

DROP TYPE [ IF EXISTS ] name [, ...] [ CASCADE | RESTRICT ]

like, that's the whole vibe. you can drop one, you can drop a whole little list of them, and you get to pick how dramatic the fallout is 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

DROP TYPE removes a user-defined data type. that's the whole job, no cap.

and here's the lil gatekeeping bit: only the owner of a type can remove it 👑 so if it's not yours, hands off, respectfully.

💖 PARAMETERS 💖

• IF EXISTS — don't throw an error if the type doesn't exist. instead, a notice gets issued, which is basically postgres being like "mmk bestie, it wasn't there but go off" 🙈
• name — the name of the data type you wanna remove. it can be schema-qualified if you're being extra specific (optionally, tho) 🎯
• CASCADE — automatically drop the objects that depend on the type (think table columns, functions, and operators), and then in turn all the objects that depend on those objects. yes it's a whole chain reaction, see Section 5.14 🔥
• RESTRICT — refuse to drop the type if literally any object depends on it. this is the default, so postgres is cautious unless you tell it otherwise 🛑 this is the safe lil default and honestly? iconic of it.

💜 EXAMPLES 💜

to remove the data type box:

DROP TYPE box;

that's it. that's the example. slay 💅

🧚 COMPATIBILITY 🧚

this command is similar to the corresponding command in the SQL standard, apart from the IF EXISTS option — that one's a PostgreSQL extension 🐘✨

but lowkey, heads up: much of the CREATE TYPE command and the data type extension mechanisms in PostgreSQL differ from the SQL standard. so like, don't assume the vibes line up perfectly 🫶

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• ALTER TYPE (ALTER_TYPE(7))
• CREATE TYPE (CREATE_TYPE(7))

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and that's the tea, bestie 🍓 this was DROP TYPE(7) from PostgreSQL 15.19, dated 2026 — go forth and delete responsibly, mwah 💖🎀