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You can drop a table from PostgreSQL database using the DROP TABLE statement.
Syntax
Following is the syntax of the DROP TABLE statement in PostgreSQL −
DROP TABLE table_name;
Example
Assume we have created two tables with name CRICKETERS and EMPLOYEES using the following queries −
postgres=# CREATE TABLE CRICKETERS ( First_Name VARCHAR(255), Last_Name VARCHAR(255), Age int, Place_Of_Birth VARCHAR(255), Country VARCHAR(255) ); CREATE TABLE postgres=# postgres=# CREATE TABLE EMPLOYEE( FIRST_NAME CHAR(20) NOT NULL, LAST_NAME CHAR(20), AGE INT, SEX CHAR(1), INCOME FLOAT ); CREATE TABLE postgres=#
Now if you verify the list of tables using the “dt” command, you can see the above created tables as −
postgres=# dt; List of relations Schema | Name | Type | Owner --------+------------+-------+---------- public | cricketers | table | postgres public | employee | table | postgres (2 rows) postgres=#
Following statement deletes the table named Employee from the database −
postgres=# DROP table employee; DROP TABLE
Since you have deleted the Employee table, if you retrieve the list of tables again, you can observe only one table in it.
postgres=# dt; List of relations Schema | Name | Type | Owner --------+------------+-------+---------- public | cricketers | table | postgres (1 row) postgres=#
If you try to delete the Employee table again, since you have already deleted it, you will get an error saying “table does not exist” as shown below −
postgres=# DROP table employee; ERROR: table "employee" does not exist postgres=#
To resolve this, you can use the IF EXISTS clause along with the DELTE statement. This removes the table if it exists else skips the DLETE operation.
postgres=# DROP table IF EXISTS employee; NOTICE: table "employee" does not exist, skipping DROP TABLE postgres=#
Removing an Entire Table Using Python
You can drop a table whenever you need to, using the DROP statement. But you need to be very careful while deleting any existing table because the data lost will not be recovered after deleting a table.
import psycopg2 #establishing the connection conn = psycopg2.connect(database="mydb", user=''postgres'', password=''password'', host=''127.0.0.1'', port= ''5432'') #Setting auto commit false conn.autocommit = True #Creating a cursor object using the cursor() method cursor = conn.cursor() #Doping EMPLOYEE table if already exists cursor.execute("DROP TABLE emp") print("Table dropped... ") #Commit your changes in the database conn.commit() #Closing the connection conn.close()
Output
#Table dropped...
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