ALTER TABLE DROP COLUMN failed because one or more objects access this column

Question

I am trying to do this:

ALTER TABLE CompanyTransactions DROP COLUMN Created

But I get this:

Msg 5074, Level 16, Stat

Answer 1

You need to do a few things:

1. You first need to check if the constrain exits in the information schema
2. then you need to query by joining the sys.default_constraints and sys.columns if the columns and default_constraints have the same object ids
3. When you join in step 2, you would get the constraint name from default_constraints. You drop that constraint. Here is an example of one such drops I did.

-- 1. Remove constraint and drop column
IF EXISTS(SELECT *
          FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
          WHERE TABLE_NAME = N'TABLE_NAME'
            AND COLUMN_NAME = N'LOWER_LIMIT')
   BEGIN
    DECLARE @sql NVARCHAR(MAX)
    WHILE 1=1
        BEGIN
            SELECT TOP 1 @sql = N'alter table [TABLE_NAME] drop constraint ['+dc.name+N']'
            FROM sys.default_constraints dc
            JOIN sys.columns c
            ON c.default_object_id = dc.object_id
            WHERE dc.parent_object_id = OBJECT_ID('[TABLE_NAME]') AND c.name = N'LOWER_LIMIT'
            IF @@ROWCOUNT = 0
                BEGIN
                    PRINT 'DELETED Constraint on column LOWER_LIMIT'
                    BREAK
                END
        EXEC (@sql)
    END;
    ALTER TABLE TABLE_NAME DROP COLUMN LOWER_LIMIT;
    PRINT 'DELETED column LOWER_LIMIT'
   END
ELSE
   PRINT 'Column LOWER_LIMIT does not exist'
GO