Check if a temporary table exists and delete if it exists before creating a temporary table

Question

I am using the following code to check if the temporary table exists and drop the table if it exists before creating again. It works fine as long as I don\'t change the colu

Answer 1

Just a little comment from my side since the OBJECT_ID doesn't work for me. It always returns that

`#tempTable doesn't exist

..even though it does exist. I just found it's stored with different name (postfixed by _ underscores) like so :

#tempTable________

This works well for me:

IF EXISTS(SELECT [name] FROM tempdb.sys.tables WHERE [name] like '#tempTable%') BEGIN
   DROP TABLE #tempTable;
END;

Answer 2

I recently saw a DBA do something similar to this:

begin try
    drop table #temp
end try

begin catch 
    print 'table does not exist'
end catch 

create table #temp(a int, b int)

Answer 3

My code uses a Source table that changes, and a Destination table that must match those changes.

-- 
-- Sample SQL to update only rows in a "Destination" Table
--  based on only rows that have changed in a "Source" table
--


--
-- Drop and Create a Temp Table to use as the "Source" Table
--
IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#tSource') IS NOT NULL drop table #tSource
create table #tSource (Col1 int, Col2 int, Col3 int, Col4 int)

--
-- Insert some values into the source
--
Insert #tSource (Col1, Col2, Col3, Col4) Values(1,1,1,1)
Insert #tSource (Col1, Col2, Col3, Col4) Values(2,1,1,2)
Insert #tSource (Col1, Col2, Col3, Col4) Values(3,1,1,3)
Insert #tSource (Col1, Col2, Col3, Col4) Values(4,1,1,4)
Insert #tSource (Col1, Col2, Col3, Col4) Values(5,1,1,5)
Insert #tSource (Col1, Col2, Col3, Col4) Values(6,1,1,6)

--
-- Drop and Create a Temp Table to use as the "Destination" Table
--
IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#tDest') IS NOT NULL drop Table #tDest
create table #tDest (Col1 int, Col2 int, Col3 int, Col4 int)

--
-- Add all Rows from the Source to the Destination
--
Insert #tDest
Select Col1, Col2, Col3, Col4 from #tSource


--
-- Look at both tables to see that they are the same
--
select *
from #tSource
Select *
from #tDest

--
-- Make some changes to the Source
--
update #tSource
    Set Col3=19
    Where Col1=1
update #tSource
    Set Col3=29
    Where Col1=2
update #tSource
    Set Col2=38
    Where Col1=3
update #tSource
    Set Col2=48
    Where Col1=4

--
-- Look at the Differences
-- Note: Only 4 rows are different. 2 Rows have remained the same.
--
Select Col1, Col2, Col3, Col4
from #tSource
except
Select Col1, Col2, Col3, Col4
from #tDest

--
-- Update only the rows that have changed
-- Note: I am using Col1 like an ID column
--
Update #tDest
    Set Col2=S.Col2,
        Col3=S.Col3,
        Col4=S.Col4
From    (   Select Col1, Col2, Col3, Col4
            from #tSource
            except
            Select Col1, Col2, Col3, Col4
            from #tDest
        ) S
Where #tDest.Col1=S.Col1 

--
-- Look at the tables again to see that
--  the destination table has changed to match
--  the source table.

select *
from #tSource
Select *
from #tDest

--
-- Clean Up
--
drop table #tSource
drop table #tDest

Answer 4

This worked for me: social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/transactsql/thread/02c6da90-954d-487d-a823-e24b891ec1b0?prof=required

if exists (
    select  * from tempdb.dbo.sysobjects o
    where o.xtype in ('U') 

   and o.id = object_id(N'tempdb..#tempTable')
)
DROP TABLE #tempTable;

Answer 5

Instead of dropping and re-creating the temp table you can truncate and reuse it

IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#Results') IS NOT NULL
    Truncate TABLE #Results
else
    CREATE TABLE #Results
    (
        Company             CHAR(3),
        StepId              TINYINT,
        FieldId             TINYINT,
    )

If you are using Sql Server 2016 or Azure Sql Database then use the below syntax to drop the temp table and recreate it. More info here MSDN

Syntax

DROP TABLE [ IF EXISTS ] [ database_name . [ schema_name ] . | schema_name . ] table_name [ ,...n ]

Query:

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS tempdb.dbo.#Results
CREATE TABLE #Results
  (
   Company             CHAR(3),
   StepId              TINYINT,
   FieldId             TINYINT,
  )

Answer 6

This worked for me,

IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb.dbo.#tempTable') IS NOT NULL 
DROP TABLE #tempTable; 

Here tempdb.dbo(dbo is nothing but your schema) is having more importance.