Question

I’m trying to delete all tables from a database except one, and I end up having the following error:

Cannot delete or update a parent row: a foreign key constraint fails

Of course I could trial and error to see what those key constraints are and eventually delete all tables but I’d like to know if there is a fast way to force drop all tables (as I’ll be able to re-insert those I don’t want deleted).

Google aimed me at some site that suggested the following method:

mysql> SET foreign_key_checks = 0;
mysql> drop table ...
mysql> SET foreign_key_checks = 1;

Short answer is it didn’t really do the trick since I ended up receiving the same error while I was able to delete some more tables. I’ve seen on Stack Overflow ways to get all foreign keys linked to a certain table but that’s way too time consuming unless I script it all (which is doable in the case there is no other option)

Database is 4.1 so I can’t use DROP DATABASE

Ideas?

Answer 1

Since you are not interested in keeping any data, drop the entire database and create a new one.