How do I drop a foreign key constraint only if it exists in sql server?

Question

I can drop a table if it exists using the following code but do not know how to do the same with a constraint:

IF EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM sys.objects WHERE OBJE         


        

Answer 1

James's answer works just fine if you know the name of the actual constraint. The tricky thing is that in legacy and other real world scenarios you may not know what the constraint is called.

If this is the case you risk creating duplicate constraints, to avoid you can use:

create function fnGetForeignKeyName
(
    @ParentTableName nvarchar(255), 
    @ParentColumnName nvarchar(255),
    @ReferencedTableName nvarchar(255),
    @ReferencedColumnName nvarchar(255)
)
returns nvarchar(255)
as
begin 
    declare @name nvarchar(255)

    select @name = fk.name  from sys.foreign_key_columns fc
    join sys.columns pc on pc.column_id = parent_column_id and parent_object_id = pc.object_id
    join sys.columns rc on rc.column_id = referenced_column_id and referenced_object_id = rc.object_id 
    join sys.objects po on po.object_id = pc.object_id
    join sys.objects ro on ro.object_id = rc.object_id 
    join sys.foreign_keys fk on fk.object_id = fc.constraint_object_id
    where 
        po.object_id = object_id(@ParentTableName) and 
        ro.object_id = object_id(@ReferencedTableName) and
        pc.name = @ParentColumnName and 
        rc.name = @ReferencedColumnName

    return @name
end

go

declare @name nvarchar(255)
declare @sql nvarchar(4000)
-- hunt for the constraint name on 'Badges.BadgeReasonTypeId' table refs the 'BadgeReasonTypes.Id'
select @name = dbo.fnGetForeignKeyName('dbo.Badges', 'BadgeReasonTypeId', 'dbo.BadgeReasonTypes', 'Id')
-- if we find it, the name will not be null
if @name is not null 
begin 
    set @sql = 'alter table Badges drop constraint ' + replace(@name,']', ']]')
    exec (@sql)
end