TRUNCATE
SQL - Language Statements
TRUNCATE
empty a table or set of tables
TRUNCATE
TRUNCATE [ TABLE ] name [, ...] [ CASCADE | RESTRICT ]
Description
TRUNCATE quickly removes all rows from a set of
tables. It has the same effect as an unqualified
DELETE on each table, but since it does not actually
scan the tables it is faster. This is most useful on large tables.
Parameters
name
The name (optionally schema-qualified) of a table to be truncated.
CASCADE
Automatically truncate all tables that have foreign-key references
to any of the named tables, or to any tables added to the group
due to CASCADE.
RESTRICT
Refuse to truncate if any of the tables have foreign-key references
from tables that are not to be truncated. This is the default.
Notes
Only the owner of a table may TRUNCATE> it.
TRUNCATE> cannot be used on a table that has foreign-key
references from other tables, unless all such tables are also truncated
in the same command. Checking validity in such cases would require table
scans, and the whole point is not to do one. The CASCADE>
option can be used to automatically include all dependent tables —
but be very careful when using this option, else you might lose data you
did not intend to!
TRUNCATE> will not run any user-defined ON
DELETE triggers that might exist for the tables.
Examples
Truncate the tables bigtable and fattable:
TRUNCATE TABLE bigtable, fattable;
Truncate the table othertable, and cascade to any tables
that are referencing othertable via foreign-key
constraints:
TRUNCATE othertable CASCADE;
Compatibility
There is no TRUNCATE command in the SQL standard.