Postgres drop table syntax error

Question

Postgres 9.3.2 on heroku.

Pretty sure I\'m just being an idiot, but I can\'t seem to figure out why my syntax is wrong.

db=> \\dt
              Li         


        

Answer 1

I had the same error. My database name was very unique and not a reserved keyword. Still needed to wrap the database name with quotation marks

"<database_name>"

Also for those that might forget always add a semicolon ; at the end of the statement, I always forget.

Answer 2

User is a reserved keyword in Postgres. You'll have to put it in quotes if you want to refer to an actual table named user:

DROP TABLE "user";

Probably best to stay away from using reserved keywords as table names if you can help it. It usually ends up creating weird problems down the road. Users might be a better name for a table.