it is very easy to drop an existing mysql table, but you need to be very careful while deleting any existing table because the data lost will not be recovered after deleting a table.

syntax

here is a generic sql syntax to drop a mysql table −

drop table table_name ;

dropping tables from the command prompt

to drop tables from the command prompt, we need to execute the drop table sql command at the mysql> prompt.

example

the following program is an example which deletes the tutorials_tbl −

root@host# mysql -u root -p
enter password:*******
mysql> use tutorials;
database changed
mysql> drop table tutorials_tbl
query ok, 0 rows affected (0.8 sec)
mysql>

dropping tables using php script

php uses mysqli query() or mysql_query() function to drop a mysql table. this function takes two parameters and returns true on success or false on failure.

syntax

$mysqli→query($sql,$resultmode)

sr.no.

parameter & description

$sql

required - sql query to drop a table.

$resultmode

optional - either the constant mysqli_use_result or mysqli_store_result depending on the desired behavior. by default, mysqli_store_result is used.

example

try the following example to drop a table −

copy and paste the following example as mysql_example.php −

<html>
   <head>
      <title>dropping mysql table</title>
   </head>
   <body>
      <?php
         $dbhost = 'localhost';
         $dbuser = 'root';
         $dbpass = 'root@123';
         $dbname = 'tutorials';
         $mysqli = new mysqli($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpass, $dbname);
         
         if($mysqli→connect_errno ) {
            printf("connect failed: %s<br />", $mysqli→connect_error);
            exit();
         }
         printf('connected successfully.<br />');
		 
         if ($mysqli→query("drop table tutorials_tbl")) {
            printf("table tutorials_tbl dropped successfully.<br />");
         }
         if ($mysqli→errno) {
            printf("could not drop table: %s<br />", $mysqli→error);
         }
         $mysqli→close();
      ?>
   </body>
</html>

output

access the mysql_example.php deployed on apache web server and verify the output.

connected successfully.
table tutorials_tbl dropped successfully.

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