MySQL DROP all tables, ignoring foreign keys

Question

Is there a nice easy way to drop all tables from a MySQL database, ignoring any foreign key constraints that may be in there?

Answer 1

Building on the answer by @Dion Truter and @Wade Williams, the following shell script will drop all tables, after first showing what it is about to run, and giving you a chance to abort using Ctrl-C.

#!/bin/bash

DB_HOST=xxx
DB_USERNAME=xxx
DB_PASSWORD=xxx
DB_NAME=xxx

CMD="mysql -sN -h ${DB_HOST} -u ${DB_USERNAME} -p${DB_PASSWORD} ${DB_NAME}"

# Generate the drop statements
TMPFILE=/tmp/drop-${RANDOM}.sql
echo 'SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0;' > ${TMPFILE}
${CMD} $@ >> ${TMPFILE} << ENDD
    SELECT concat('DROP TABLE IF EXISTS \`', table_name, '\`;')
    FROM information_schema.tables
    WHERE table_schema = '${DB_NAME}';
ENDD
echo 'SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 1;' >> ${TMPFILE}

# Warn what we are about to do
echo
cat ${TMPFILE}
echo
echo "Press ENTER to proceed (or Ctrl-C to abort)."
read

# Run the SQL
echo "Dropping tables..."
${CMD} $@ < ${TMPFILE}
echo "Exit status is ${?}."
rm ${TMPFILE}