Editing Data definition language (section)

===DROP statement===
The ''DROP'' statement destroys an existing database, table, index, or view.

A ''DROP'' statement in [[SQL]] removes a component from a [[relational database management system]] (RDBMS).  The types of objects that can be dropped depends on which RDBMS is being used, but most support the dropping of [[table (database)|tables]], [[user (database)|users]], and [[database]]s. Some systems (such as [[PostgreSQL]]) allow DROP and other DDL commands to occur inside of a [[database transaction|transaction]] and thus be [[rollback (data management)|rolled back]].  The typical usage is simply:

 DROP ''objecttype'' ''objectname''.

For example, the command to drop a table named '''employees''' is:

<syntaxhighlight lang="sql">
DROP TABLE employees;
</syntaxhighlight>

The ''DROP'' statement is distinct from the ''[[Delete (SQL)|DELETE]]'' and ''[[Truncate (SQL)|TRUNCATE]]'' statements, in that ''DELETE'' and ''TRUNCATE'' do not remove the table itself. For example, a ''DELETE'' statement might delete some (or all) data from a table while leaving the table itself in the database, whereas a ''DROP'' statement removes the entire table from the database.