Sometimes we require to drop a column from a SQL table. exists and then dropping them is always the proper way to drop an object from the database. DROP TABLE IF EXISTS statement checks the existence of the table, and if the table exists, it drops. @delimiter ++; declare v_exist number(1); begin SELECT COUNT(*) INTO v_exist FROM user_tables WHERE table_name = 'FOO'; if v_exist = 1 then execute immediate 'drop table FOO'; end if; execute immediate 'CREATE TABLE FOO (bar number(1))'; end; SELECT bar … exception when others then null; It was not surprising to see that not many people know about the existence of this feature. If you use IF EXISTS option, then SQLite removes the table only if the table exists, otherwise, it just ignores the statement and does nothing. If you want to remove a table in a specific database, you use the [schema_name.] The additional ‘type’ field in the where clause ensures that the table that is about to be dropped is a User table and not a system table. Syntax The DROP TABLE statement is used to drop an existing table in a database. declare table_does_not_exist exception; PRAGMA EXCEPTION_INIT(table_does_not_exist, -942); begin execute immediate 'drop table continent /*+ IF EXISTS */'; exception when table_does_not_exist then DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('Ignoring table or view does not exist') ; end; / Additional note: the usage of. DROP IF EXISTS Table Or Other Objects In SQL Server Apr 11, 2019 Nov 3, 2017 by Beaulin Twinkle Checking whether a database objects like table, stored procedure, function, etc. Drop Table Command for SQL Server 2014 and prior versions. The last execute immediate is outside the code block. explicitly. It is a PL/SQL command and needs to be inside a block of code. To determine if a table exists, it’s best to go against the sys.objects view by querying the object_id using the fully qualified name of the table. It is a good practice as well to drop unwanted columns as well. It saves efforts for the SQL engine and improves query performance while retrieving fewer records for the output. Assume that you want to write a SQL Query in SQL Server which checks if the table exists in database and want to drop it , you can use the OBJECT_ID function to determine the table existence by passing the table name and the ‘U’ as parameters. Code. In this post SQL Server – 2016 – T-SQL Enhancement “Drop if Exists” clause, we have seen the new feature introduced in SQL Server version 2016.One of my friends recently asked me question that how to drop table if exists in MySQL database? DROP Column IF EXISTS. IF EXISTS (select * from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS WHERE COLUMN_NAME = 'vCustomerName') BEGIN ALTER TABLE Sales.SalesOrder_json DROP COLUMN vCustomerName; END GO This is only for one column, to DROP other 6 columns/constraints you will have to repeat this 6 more times. 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