Do statistics referencing a column prevent that column from being dropped?

Question

I\'m trying a very simple drop column statement:

alter table MyTable drop column MyColumn

and receiving several errors along the l

Answer 1

Auto-generated statistics that I have seen all either have the name of the index they represent OR start with something like WA_Sys_.

Are you 100% sure this is not a set of custom stats someone set up?

Check this:

select *
FROM sys.stats WHERE name = '_dta_stat_1268251623_3_2'

...and see what the user_created field indicates.

Per comment:

This is untested but you could try something like:

exec sp_MSforeachdb '
use ?

DECLARE @SQL varchar(max) = ''''

select @SQL = @SQL + ''DROP STATISTICS '' + OBJECT_NAME(c.object_id) + ''.'' + s.name + CHAR(10) + CHAR(13)
from sys.stats s
INNER JOIN sys.stats_columns sc
ON sc.stats_id = s.stats_id
INNER JOIN sys.columns c
ON c.column_id = sc.column_id
WHERE c.name = ''ClaimNbr''
--and s.user_created = 1

PRINT @SQL'

Change the PRINT to an EXEC if it looks good.

sp_msforeachdb is a cursor in the background but the rest of the logic you can do as a set.