DROP_TABLE(7pg16)

🌸 NAME 🌸

okay so DROP_TABLE — remove a table. this is the DROP_TABLE(7pg16) manual page from the PostgreSQL 16.15 docs, and bestie we are absolutely getting into it 💅✨

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

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

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so DROP TABLE removes tables from the database. only the table owner, the schema owner, and superuser can drop a table. to empty a table of rows without destroying the table, use DELETE or TRUNCATE. 🧚

DROP TABLE always removes any indexes, rules, triggers, and constraints that exist for the target table. however, to drop a table that is referenced by a view or a foreign-key constraint of another table, CASCADE must be specified. (and yes, CASCADE will remove a dependent view entirely, but in the foreign-key case it will only remove the foreign-key constraint, not the other table entirely.) 💀

🎀 PARAMETERS 🎀

• IF EXISTS — do not throw an error if the table does not exist. a notice is issued in this case. 👀
• name — the name (optionally schema-qualified) of the table to drop. 🏷️
• CASCADE — automatically drop objects that depend on the table (such as views), and in turn all objects that depend on those objects (see Section 5.14). 🔥
• RESTRICT — refuse to drop the table if any objects depend on it. this is the default. 🛑

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

to destroy two tables, films and distributors:

DROP TABLE films, distributors;

👑 COMPATIBILITY 👑

this command conforms to the SQL standard, except that the standard only allows one table to be dropped per command, and apart from the IF EXISTS option, which is a PostgreSQL extension. ✨

🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

• ALTER TABLE (ALTER_TABLE(7))
• CREATE TABLE (CREATE_TABLE(7))

k that's the whole page bestie 🫶 — mwah 💋. this was PostgreSQL 16.15, dated 2026, page DROP TABLE(7). you ate that, no cap. periodt ✨