How to drop multiple tables in PostgreSQL using a wildcard

Question

When working with partitions, there is often a need to delete all partitions at once.

However

DROP TABLE tablename*

Does not work.

Answer 1

So I faced this problem today. I loaded my server db through pgadmin3 and did it that way. Tables are sorted alphabetically so shift and click followed by delete works well.

Answer 2

I've always felt way more comfortable creating a sql script I can review and test before I run it than relying on getting the plpgsql just right so it doesn't blow away my database. Something simple in bash that selects the tablenames from the catalog, then creates the drop statements for me. So for 8.4.x you'd get this basic query:

SELECT 'drop table '||n.nspname ||'.'|| c.relname||';' as "Name" 
FROM pg_catalog.pg_class c
     LEFT JOIN pg_catalog.pg_namespace n ON n.oid = c.relnamespace
WHERE c.relkind IN ('r','v','S','')
     AND n.nspname <> 'pg_catalog'
     AND n.nspname <> 'information_schema'
     AND n.nspname !~ '^pg_toast'
AND pg_catalog.pg_table_is_visible(c.oid);

Which you can add a where clause to. (where c.relname ilike 'bubba%')

Output looks like this:

         Name          
-----------------------
 drop table public.a1;
 drop table public.a2;

So, save that to a .sql file and run it with psql -f filename.sql

Answer 3

Use a comma separated list:

DROP TABLE foo, bar, baz;

If you realy need a footgun, this one will do it's job:

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION footgun(IN _schema TEXT, IN _parttionbase TEXT) 
RETURNS void 
LANGUAGE plpgsql
AS
$$
DECLARE
    row     record;
BEGIN
    FOR row IN 
        SELECT
            table_schema,
            table_name
        FROM
            information_schema.tables
        WHERE
            table_type = 'BASE TABLE'
        AND
            table_schema = _schema
        AND
            table_name ILIKE (_parttionbase || '%')
    LOOP
        EXECUTE 'DROP TABLE ' || quote_ident(row.table_schema) || '.' || quote_ident(row.table_name);
        RAISE INFO 'Dropped table: %', quote_ident(row.table_schema) || '.' || quote_ident(row.table_name);
    END LOOP;
END;
$$;

SELECT footgun('public', 'tablename');

Answer 4

Using linux command line tools, it can be done this way:

psql -d mydb -P tuples_only=1 -c '\dt' | cut -d '|' -f 2 | paste -sd "," | sed 's/ //g' | xargs -I{} echo psql -d mydb -c "drop table {};"

NOTE: The last echo is there because I couldn't find a way to put quotes around the drop command, so you need to copy and paste the output and add the quotes yourself.

If anyone can fix that minor issue, that'd be awesome sauce.

Answer 5

I used this.

echo "select 'drop table '||tablename||';' from pg_tables where tablename like 'name%'" | \
    psql -U postgres -d dbname -t | \
    psql -U postgres -d dbname

Substitute in appropriate values for dbname and name%.

Answer 6

Disclosure: this answer is meant for Linux users.

I would add some more specific instructions to what @prongs said:

• \dt can support wildcards: so you can run \dt myPrefix* for example, to select only the tables you want to drop;
• after CTRL-SHIFT-DRAG to select then CTRL-SHIFT-C to copy the text;
• in vim, go to INSERT MODE and paste the tables with CTRL-SHIFT-V;
• press ESC, then run :%s/[ ]*\n/, /g to translate it to comma-separated list, then you can paste it (excluding the last comma) in DROP TABLE % CASCADE.