MySQL DROP all tables, ignoring foreign keys

Question

Is there a nice easy way to drop all tables from a MySQL database, ignoring any foreign key constraints that may be in there?

Answer 1

Here's a cursor based solution. Kinda lengthy but works as a single SQL batch:

DROP PROCEDURE IF EXISTS `drop_all_tables`;

DELIMITER $$
CREATE PROCEDURE `drop_all_tables`()
BEGIN
    DECLARE _done INT DEFAULT FALSE;
    DECLARE _tableName VARCHAR(255);
    DECLARE _cursor CURSOR FOR
        SELECT table_name 
        FROM information_schema.TABLES
        WHERE table_schema = SCHEMA();
    DECLARE CONTINUE HANDLER FOR NOT FOUND SET _done = TRUE;

    OPEN _cursor;

    REPEAT FETCH _cursor INTO _tableName;

    IF NOT _done THEN
        SET @stmt_sql = CONCAT('DROP TABLE ', _tableName);
        PREPARE stmt1 FROM @stmt_sql;
        EXECUTE stmt1;
        DEALLOCATE PREPARE stmt1;
    END IF;

    UNTIL _done END REPEAT;

    CLOSE _cursor;

END$$

DELIMITER ;

call drop_all_tables(); 

DROP PROCEDURE IF EXISTS `drop_all_tables`;

Answer 2

Building on the answer by @Dion Truter and @Wade Williams, the following shell script will drop all tables, after first showing what it is about to run, and giving you a chance to abort using Ctrl-C.

#!/bin/bash

DB_HOST=xxx
DB_USERNAME=xxx
DB_PASSWORD=xxx
DB_NAME=xxx

CMD="mysql -sN -h ${DB_HOST} -u ${DB_USERNAME} -p${DB_PASSWORD} ${DB_NAME}"

# Generate the drop statements
TMPFILE=/tmp/drop-${RANDOM}.sql
echo 'SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0;' > ${TMPFILE}
${CMD} $@ >> ${TMPFILE} << ENDD
    SELECT concat('DROP TABLE IF EXISTS \`', table_name, '\`;')
    FROM information_schema.tables
    WHERE table_schema = '${DB_NAME}';
ENDD
echo 'SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 1;' >> ${TMPFILE}

# Warn what we are about to do
echo
cat ${TMPFILE}
echo
echo "Press ENTER to proceed (or Ctrl-C to abort)."
read

# Run the SQL
echo "Dropping tables..."
${CMD} $@ < ${TMPFILE}
echo "Exit status is ${?}."
rm ${TMPFILE}

Answer 3

DB="your database name" \
    && mysql $DB < "SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0" \
    && mysqldump --add-drop-table --no-data $DB | grep 'DROP TABLE' | grep -Ev "^$" | mysql $DB \
    && mysql $DB < "SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=1"

Answer 4

From http://www.devdaily.com/blog/post/mysql/drop-mysql-tables-in-any-order-foreign-keys:

SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0;
drop table if exists customers;
drop table if exists orders;
drop table if exists order_details;
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 1;

(Note that this answers how to disable foreign key checks in order to be able to drop the tables in arbitrary order. It does not answer how to automatically generate drop-table statements for all existing tables and execute them in a single script. Jean's answer does.)

Answer 5

Just put here some useful comment made by Jonathan Watt to drop all tables

MYSQL="mysql -h HOST -u USERNAME -pPASSWORD DB_NAME"
$MYSQL -BNe "show tables" | awk '{print "set foreign_key_checks=0; drop table `" $1 "`;"}' | $MYSQL
unset MYSQL

It helps me and I hope it could be useful

Answer 6

I came up with this modification on Dion Truter's answer to make it easier with many tables:

SET GROUP_CONCAT_MAX_LEN = 10000000;
SELECT CONCAT('SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0;\n', 
              GROUP_CONCAT(CONCAT('DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `', table_name, '`')
                           SEPARATOR ';\n'),
              ';\nSET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=1;')
FROM information_schema.tables
WHERE table_schema = 'SchemaName';

This returns the entire thing in one field, so you can copy once and delete all the tables (use Copy Field Content (unquoted) in Workbench). If you have a LOT of tables, you may hit some limits on GROUP_CONCAT(). If so, increase the max len variable (and max_allowed_packet, if necessary).