Question

How can I drop all tables whose names begin with a given string?

I think this can be done with some dynamic SQL and the INFORMATION_SCHEMA tables.

Answer 1

You may need to modify the query to include the owner if there’s more than one in the database.

DECLARE @cmd varchar(4000) DECLARE cmds CURSOR FOR SELECT 'drop table [' + Table_Name + ']' FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES WHERE Table_Name LIKE 'prefix%'  OPEN cmds WHILE 1 = 1 BEGIN     FETCH cmds INTO @cmd     IF @@fetch_status != 0 BREAK     EXEC(@cmd) END CLOSE cmds; DEALLOCATE cmds 

This is cleaner than using a two-step approach of generate script plus run. But one advantage of the script generation is that it gives you the chance to review the entirety of what’s going to be run before it’s actually run.

I know that if I were going to do this against a production database, I’d be as careful as possible.

Edit Code sample fixed.