4.7 DROP TABLE

When you no longer need a table, you can destroy it with the DROP TABLE statement:

DROP TABLE t;

In MySQL, a single DROP TABLE statement can name several tables to be dropped simultaneously:

DROP TABLE t1, t2, t3;

Normally, an error occurs if you attempt to drop a table that does not exist:

mysql> DROP TABLE no_such_table;

ERROR 1051: Unknown table 'no_such_table'

To prevent an error from occurring if a table does not exist when you attempt to drop it, add an IF EXISTS clause to the statement:

mysql> DROP TABLE IF EXISTS no_such_table;

If you drop a table by mistake, you must recover it from backups, so be careful. (This is the same principle as the one mentioned earlier for databases: If you drop a database, you cannot undo the action. A dropped database can only be recovered from your backups.)