MySQL DROP all tables, ignoring foreign keys

Question

Is there a nice easy way to drop all tables from a MySQL database, ignoring any foreign key constraints that may be in there?

Answer 1

Here's a cursor based solution. Kinda lengthy but works as a single SQL batch:

DROP PROCEDURE IF EXISTS `drop_all_tables`;

DELIMITER $$
CREATE PROCEDURE `drop_all_tables`()
BEGIN
    DECLARE _done INT DEFAULT FALSE;
    DECLARE _tableName VARCHAR(255);
    DECLARE _cursor CURSOR FOR
        SELECT table_name 
        FROM information_schema.TABLES
        WHERE table_schema = SCHEMA();
    DECLARE CONTINUE HANDLER FOR NOT FOUND SET _done = TRUE;

    OPEN _cursor;

    REPEAT FETCH _cursor INTO _tableName;

    IF NOT _done THEN
        SET @stmt_sql = CONCAT('DROP TABLE ', _tableName);
        PREPARE stmt1 FROM @stmt_sql;
        EXECUTE stmt1;
        DEALLOCATE PREPARE stmt1;
    END IF;

    UNTIL _done END REPEAT;

    CLOSE _cursor;

END$$

DELIMITER ;

call drop_all_tables(); 

DROP PROCEDURE IF EXISTS `drop_all_tables`;

Answer 2

In a Linux shell like bash/zsh:

DATABASE_TO_EMPTY="your_db_name";
{ echo "SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0;" ; \
  mysql "$DATABASE_TO_EMPTY" --skip-column-names -e \
  "SELECT concat('DROP TABLE IF EXISTS ', table_name, ';') \
   FROM information_schema.tables WHERE table_schema = '$DATABASE_TO_EMPTY';";\
  } | mysql "$DATABASE_TO_EMPTY"

This will generate the commands, then immediately pipe them to a 2nd client instance which will delete the tables.

The clever bit is of course copied from other answers here - I just wanted a copy-and-pasteable one-liner (ish) to actually do the job the OP wanted.

Note of course you'll have to put your credentials in (twice) in these mysql commands, too, unless you have a very low security setup. (or you could alias your mysql command to include your creds.)

Answer 3

In php its as easy as:

$pdo = new PDO('mysql:dbname=YOURDB', 'root', 'root');

$pdo->exec('SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0');

$query = "SELECT concat('DROP TABLE IF EXISTS ', table_name, ';')
          FROM information_schema.tables
          WHERE table_schema = 'YOURDB'";

foreach($pdo->query($query) as $row) {
    $pdo->exec($row[0]);
}

$pdo->exec('SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 1');

Just remember to change YOURDB to the name of your database, and obviously the user/pass.

Answer 4

DB="your database name" \
    && mysql $DB < "SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0" \
    && mysqldump --add-drop-table --no-data $DB | grep 'DROP TABLE' | grep -Ev "^$" | mysql $DB \
    && mysql $DB < "SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=1"

Answer 5

Simple and clear (may be).

Might not be a fancy solution, but this worked me and saved my day.

Worked for Server version: 5.6.38 MySQL Community Server (GPL)

Steps I followed:

 1. generate drop query using concat and group_concat.
 2. use database
 3. disable key constraint check
 4. copy the query generated from step 1
 5. enable key constraint check
 6. run show table

MySQL shell

mysql> SYSTEM CLEAR;
mysql> SELECT CONCAT('DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `', GROUP_CONCAT(table_name SEPARATOR '`, `'), '`;') AS dropquery FROM information_schema.tables WHERE table_schema = 'emall_duplicate';
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| dropquery                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `admin`, `app`, `app_meta_settings`, `commission`, `commission_history`, `coupon`, `email_templates`, `infopages`, `invoice`, `m_pc_xref`, `member`, `merchant`, `message_templates`, `mnotification`, `mshipping_address`, `notification`, `order`, `orderdetail`, `pattributes`, `pbrand`, `pcategory`, `permissions`, `pfeatures`, `pimage`, `preport`, `product`, `product_review`, `pspecification`, `ptechnical_specification`, `pwishlist`, `role_perms`, `roles`, `settings`, `test`, `testanother`, `user_perms`, `user_roles`, `users`, `wishlist`; |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> USE emall_duplicate;
Database changed
mysql> SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0;                                                                                                                                                   Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

// copy and paste generated query from step 1
mysql> DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `admin`, `app`, `app_meta_settings`, `commission`, `commission_history`, `coupon`, `email_templates`, `infopages`, `invoice`, `m_pc_xref`, `member`, `merchant`, `message_templates`, `mnotification`, `mshipping_address`, `notification`, `order`, `orderdetail`, `pattributes`, `pbrand`, `pcategory`, `permissions`, `pfeatures`, `pimage`, `preport`, `product`, `product_review`, `pspecification`, `ptechnical_specification`, `pwishlist`, `role_perms`, `roles`, `settings`, `test`, `testanother`, `user_perms`, `user_roles`, `users`, `wishlist`;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.18 sec)

mysql> SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 1;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> SHOW tables;
Empty set (0.01 sec)

mysql> 

Answer 6

Here is an automated way to do this via a bash script:

host=$1
dbName=$2
user=$3
password=$4

if [ -z "$1" ]
then
    host="localhost"
fi

# drop all the tables in the database
for i in `mysql -h$host -u$user -p$password $dbName -e "show tables" | grep -v Tables_in` ; do  echo $i && mysql -h$host -u$user -p$password $dbName -e "SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0; drop table $i ; SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 1" ; done