Question

I’m debating whether or not to try running through a list of tables and truncating them with a stored procedure. Would it be that easy with MySql and how would I do it?

Answer 1

The main piece of info you need is the list of tables. Most platforms support this:

select table_name from information_schema.tables

However, before you code the sproc, do a select * from information_schema.tables and examine the entries, there may be some you do not expect — system tables and such, so you may need to craft a filter to get the set you want.

Since I don’t do mySQL that much, I can’t show you the code, but if you can translate this from MS SQL, and fill in some blanks you can make it work:

declare @table_name varchar(200)
while 1=1 begin
    select top 1 @table_name = table_name
      from information_schema.tables
     where ....possible filter...
    if @table_name is null break

    -- for this line you may need dynamic sql
    truncate table @table_name
end