How to drop all tables from the database with manage.py CLI in Django?

Question

How can I drop all tables from a database using manage.py and command line? Is there any way to do that executing manage.py with appropriate parameters so I can execute it f

Answer 1

Here's a shell script I ended up piecing together to deal with this issue. Hope it saves someone some time.

#!/bin/sh

drop() {
    echo "Droping all tables prefixed with $1_."
    echo
    echo "show tables" | ./manage.py dbshell |
    egrep "^$1_" | xargs -I "@@" echo "DROP TABLE @@;" |
    ./manage.py dbshell
    echo "Tables dropped."
    echo
}

cancel() {
    echo "Cancelling Table Drop."
    echo
}

if [ -z "$1" ]; then
    echo "Please specify a table prefix to drop."
else
    echo "Drop all tables with $1_ prefix?"
    select choice in drop cancel;do
        $choice $1
        break
    done
fi

Answer 2

Drops all tables and recreates them:

python manage.py sqlclear app1 app2 appN | sed -n "2,$p" | sed -n "$ !p" | sed "s/";/" CASCADE;/" | sed -e "1s/^/BEGIN;/" -e "$s/$/COMMIT;/" | python manage.py dbshell
python manage.py syncdb

Explanation:

manage.py sqlclear - "prints the DROP TABLE SQL statements for the given app name(s)"

sed -n "2,$p" - grabs all lines except first line

sed -n "$ !p" - grabs all lines except last line

sed "s/";/" CASCADE;/" - replaces all semicolons (;) with (CASCADE;)

sed -e "1s/^/BEGIN;/" -e "$s/$/COMMIT;/" - inserts (BEGIN;) as first text, inserts (COMMIT;) as last text

manage.py dbshell - "Runs the command-line client for the database engine specified in your ENGINE setting, with the connection parameters specified in your USER, PASSWORD, etc., settings"

manage.py syncdb - "Creates the database tables for all apps in INSTALLED_APPS whose tables have not already been created"

Dependencies:

• sed, to use on Windows, I installed UnxUtils: (Download) (Installation Instructions)

---

Credits:

@Manoj Govindan and @Mike DeSimone for sqlclear piped to dbshell

@jpic for 'sed "s/";/" CASCADE;/"'

Answer 3

simple(?) way to do it from python (on mysql):

from django.db import connection

cursor = connection.cursor()
cursor.execute('show tables;')
parts = ('DROP TABLE IF EXISTS %s;' % table for (table,) in cursor.fetchall())
sql = 'SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0;\n' + '\n'.join(parts) + 'SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 1;\n'
connection.cursor().execute(sql)

Answer 4

There's no native Django management command to drop all tables. Both sqlclear and reset require an app name.

However, you can install Django Extensions which gives you manage.py reset_db, which does exactly what you want (and gives you access to many more useful management commands).

Answer 5

I would recommend you to install django-extensions and use python manage.py reset_db command. It does exactly what you want.

Answer 6

This answer is for postgresql DB:

Run: echo 'drop owned by some_user' | ./manage.py dbshell

NOTE: some_user is the name of the user you use to access the database, see settings.py file:

default_database = {
    'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2',
    'NAME': 'somedbname',
    'USER': 'some_user',
    'PASSWORD': 'somepass',
    'HOST': 'postgresql',
    'PORT': '',
}