How to drop a list of SQL Server tables, ignoring constraints?

Question

I have a list of half a dozen MSSQL 2008 tables that I would like to remove at once from my database. The data has been entirely migrated to new tables. There is no reference in

Answer 1

It depends on how you want to drop the tables. If list of tables need to drop covers almost above 20 % of tables under your DB.

Then I will disable all the constraints in that DB under my script and drop the tables and Enable the constraints under the same script.

--To Disable a Constraint at DB level

EXEC sp_MSForEachTable 'ALTER TABLE ? NOCHECK CONSTRAINT ALL'

--Write the code to DROP tables

DROP TABLE TABLENAME

DROP TABLE TABLENAME

DROP TABLE TABLENAME

--To Enable a Constraint at DB level

EXEC sp_MSForEachTable 'ALTER TABLE ? CHECK CONSTRAINT ALL'

Finally to check the Status of your constraints fire up this Query.

--Checks the Status of Constraints

SELECT (CASE 
    WHEN OBJECTPROPERTY(CONSTID, 'CNSTISDISABLED') = 0 THEN 'ENABLED'
    ELSE 'DISABLED'
    END) AS STATUS,
    OBJECT_NAME(CONSTID) AS CONSTRAINT_NAME,
    OBJECT_NAME(FKEYID) AS TABLE_NAME,
    COL_NAME(FKEYID, FKEY) AS COLUMN_NAME,
    OBJECT_NAME(RKEYID) AS REFERENCED_TABLE_NAME,
    COL_NAME(RKEYID, RKEY) AS REFERENCED_COLUMN_NAME
FROM SYSFOREIGNKEYS
ORDER BY TABLE_NAME, CONSTRAINT_NAME,REFERENCED_TABLE_NAME, KEYNO

If you dont want to disable the constraints at Database level then make a list of tables which you want to drop.

Step1 : Check the Constraints associated with thos tables

SELECT * 
FROM sys.foreign_keys
WHERE referenced_object_id = object_id('dbo.Tablename')

Step2 : Disable the Constraints which are associated with these tables.

ALTER TABLE MyTable NOCHECK CONSTRAINT MyConstraint

Step3 : Drop the tables

DROP TABLE TABLENAME