Understanding DELETE, TRUNCATE and DROP Table in SQL
The DELETE, TRUNCATE, DROP Commands and when to use them in your projects. Easy Simple to Understand Table.
I wanted to explain the main differences between these commands in a table format.
Difference Between DROP, TRUNCATE and DELETE Commands
The following table shows the what are DELETE, TRUNCATE, DROP Commands and when to use them.
DROP | TRUNCATE | DELETE |
DROP will delete entire table (both rows and structure-columns). | TRUNCATE deletes all the rows in the table and structure(columns) will remain the same. | DELETE is used to delete particular rows based on the condition specified in WHERE clause |
Syntax:DROP TABLE table_name | Syntax:TRUNCATE TABLE table_name | Syntax:DELETE FROM table_name WHERE condition |
DROP is an Data Definition Language (DDL) Command | TRUNCATE is an Data Definition Language (DDL) Command | DELETE is an Data Manipulation Language (DML) Command |
DROP & TRUNCATE are equal in terms of computing. | TRUNCATE is faster than DELETE. | DELETE is slower than TRUNCATE. |
WHERE Clause is not used. | WHERE Clause is not used. | WHERE Clause is used. |
Use this when you don’t need the table anymore. | Use this when you want to empty a table. | Use this when you want to delete a certain records from a table. |
Here are the commands so you can use in your project.
DELETE FROM table_name where condition;
TRUNCATE TABLE table_name;