SQL Drop, Delete and Truncate

In SQL there are 3 commands that are used to remove data from a database. Although they remove data, they have major differences.

Let’s assume we have a database call school and with in that school we have table call class, within this class we have a bunch of records of students that attend this class.

Drop command

drop table class;

The drop command will delete the whole table class, it will delete all of the records and the table structure from the database.

Delete command

#assuming student_id is a field of class
Delete from class
where student_id = 5;

The delete command is used to delete specific records from a table. In our example above it will only delete the record where student_id is 5.

Truncate command

Truncate table class;

The truncate command removes all the records of a table, with out dropping the table structure.