Question

I have an Oracle schema with no tables (I dropped them). When I look at the user_constraints table, however

    SELECT * FROM user_constraints;

I see a number of rows. How is it possible to delete these constraints?

    DELETE FROM user_constraints WHERE owner='owner';

did not work, it gave me an “insufficient privileges” error.

    SELECT owner, constraint_name, constraint_type, table_name, r_owner, r_constraint_name  FROM user_constraints;

    OWNER                          CONSTRAINT_NAME                CONSTRAINT_TYPE TABLE_NAME                     R_OWNER                        R_CONSTRAINT_NAME            
    ORA_AI_1_9                     BIN$z2XwnFUHEHrgQ4sGOR4Qeg==$0 P               BIN$z2XwnFUJEHrgQ4sGOR4Qeg==$0                                                               

    ORA_AI_1_9                     BIN$z1NhC6g4oErgQ4sGOR6gSg==$0 P               BIN$z1NhC6g6oErgQ4sGOR6gSg==$0                                                               

    ORA_AI_1_9                     BIN$z1anK5OEEHrgQ4sGOR4Qeg==$0 P               BIN$z1anK5OGEHrgQ4sGOR4Qeg==$0                                                               

    ORA_AI_1_9                     BIN$z1NhC6hhoErgQ4sGOR6gSg==$0 P               BIN$z1NhC6hjoErgQ4sGOR6gSg==$0            

Answer 1

so are you on 10/11g and have the recylebin perhaps?

SQL> select count(*) from user_tables;

  COUNT(*)
----------
         0

SQL> select count(*) from user_constraints;

  COUNT(*)
----------
         0

SQL> create table foo(id number primary key);

Table created.

SQL> ALTER SESSION SET recyclebin = ON;

Session altered.

SQL> select count(*) from user_tables;

  COUNT(*)
----------
         1

SQL> select count(*) from user_constraints;

  COUNT(*)
----------
         1

SQL> drop table foo;

Table dropped.

SQL> select count(*) from user_constraints;

  COUNT(*)
----------
         1

SQL> select count(*) from user_tables;

  COUNT(*)
----------
         0

SQL>

you can purge the reclebin to fix this.

SQL> purge recyclebin;

Recyclebin purged.

SQL> select count(*) from user_constraints;

  COUNT(*)
----------
         0