Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn how to use PostgreSQL TRUNCATE TABLE
statement to quickly delete all data from large tables.
To remove all data from a table, you use the DELETE
statement without a WHERE clause. However, when the table has numerous data, the DELETE
statement is not efficient. In this case, you can use the TRUNCATE TABLE
statement.
The TRUNCATE TABLE
statement deletes all data from a table very fast. Here’s the basic syntax of the TRUNCATE TABLE
statement:
TRUNCATE TABLE table_name;
In this syntax, you specify the name of the table that you want to delete data after the TRUNCATE TABLE keywords.
To remove all data from multiple tables at once, you separate the tables by commas (,) as follows:
TRUNCATE TABLE
table_name1,
table_name2,
...;
In this syntax, you specify the name of the tables that you want to delete all data after the TRUNCATE TABLE
keywords.
In practice, the table you want to delete all data often has foreign key references from other tables.
By default, the TRUNCATE TABLE
statement does not remove any data from the table that has foreign key references.
To remove data from a table and other tables that have foreign key references the table, you use CASCADE
option in the TRUNCATE TABLE
statement as follows :
TRUNCATE TABLE table_name
CASCADE;
Let’s explore some examples of using the TRUNCATE TABLE
statement.
First, create a new table called products
:
CREATE TABLE products(
id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
name VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
price DECIMAL(10,2) NOT NULL DEFAULT 0
);
Second, insert some rows into the products
table:
INSERT INTO products (name, price)
VALUES
('A', 19.99),
('B', 29.99),
('C', 39.99),
('D', 49.99)
RETURNING *;
Output:
id | name | price
----+------+-------
1 | A | 19.99
2 | B | 29.99
3 | C | 39.99
4 | D | 49.99
(4 rows)
Third, delete all data from the products
table using the TRUNCATE TABLE
statement:
TRUNCATE TABLE products;
Output:
TRUNCATE TABLE
First, create a table called customers
and insert data into it:
CREATE TABLE customers(
id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
name VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
phone VARCHAR(25) NOT NULL
);
INSERT INTO customers (name, phone) VALUES
('John Doe', '123-456-7890'),
('Jane Smith', '987-654-3210'),
('Robert Johnson', '555-123-4567')
RETURNING *;
Second, create a table called vendors
and insert data into it:
CREATE TABLE vendors(
id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
name VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
phone VARCHAR(25) NOT NULL
);
INSERT INTO vendors (name, phone) VALUES
('ABC Electronics', '555-123-4567'),
('XYZ Supplies', '999-888-7777'),
('Tech Solutions Inc.', '111-222-3333')
RETURNING *;
Third, delete data from the customers and vendors tables using the TRUNCATE TABLE statement:
TRUNCATE TABLE customers, vendors;
First, create tables orders
and order_details
:
CREATE TABLE orders(
order_id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
customer_name VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
ordered_date DATE NOT NULL,
status VARCHAR(20) NOT NULL
);
CREATE TABLE order_items (
order_id INT NOT NULL,
item_id INT NOT NULL,
product_name VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
quantity INT NOT NULL,
FOREIGN KEY (order_id)
REFERENCES orders(order_id) ON DELETE CASCADE ON UPDATE CASCADE,
PRIMARY KEY (order_id, item_id)
);
INSERT INTO orders (customer_name, ordered_date, status)
VALUES
('John Doe', '2024-01-25', 'Processing'),
('Jane Smith', '2024-01-26', 'Shipped'),
('Bob Johnson', '2024-01-27', 'Delivered');
INSERT INTO order_items (order_id, item_id, product_name, quantity)
VALUES
(1, 1, 'A', 2),
(1, 2, 'B', 1),
(2, 1, 'C', 3),
(3, 1, 'D', 5),
(3, 2, 'E', 2);
Second, attempt to truncate data from the orders
table:
TRUNCATE TABLE orders;
PostgreSQL issues the following error:
DETAIL: Table "order_items" references "orders".
HINT: Truncate table "order_items" at the same time, or use TRUNCATE ... CASCADE.
The reason is that the orders
table is referenced by the order_items
table. To truncate both the orders
and order_items
tables at the same time, you can use the CASCADE
option.
Third, truncate data from both orders
and order_items
tables:
TRUNCATE TABLE orders CASCADE;
PostgreSQL issues the following notice indicating that the order_items
is also truncated:
NOTICE: truncate cascades to table "order_items"
TRUNCATE TABLE
Note that the TRUNCATE TABLE
statement uses the RESTRICT
option by default to prevent a table that is referenced by a foreign key from being truncated.
Besides removing data, you may want to reset the values of the identity column by using the RESTART IDENTITY
option like this:
TRUNCATE TABLE table_name
RESTART IDENTITY;
For example, the following statement removes all rows from the products
table and resets the sequence associated with the id
column:
TRUNCATE TABLE products
RESTART IDENTITY;
By default, the TRUNCATE TABLE
statement uses the CONTINUE IDENTITY
option. This option does not restart the value in the sequence associated with the column in the table.
Even though the TRUNCATE TABLE
statement removes all data from a table, it does not fire any ON DELETE
triggers associated with the table.
To fire the trigger when the TRUNCATE TABLE
statement executes, you need to define BEFORE TRUNCATE
and/or AFTER TRUNCATE
triggers for that table.
The TRUNCATE TABLE
is transaction-safe, meaning that you can place it within a transaction.
The TRUNCATE TABLE
statement is more efficient than the DELETE
statement due to the following main reasons:
TRUNCATE TABLE
statement doesn’t generate individual row deletion logs. Instead, it deallocates entire data pages making it faster than the DELETE
statement.TRUNCATE TABLE
statement to delete all data from a large table very fast.CASCADE
option to truncate a table that is referenced by foreign key constraints.TRUNCATE TABLE
deletes data but does not fire ON DELETE
triggers. Instead, it fires the BEFORE TRUNCATE
and AFTER TRUNCATE
triggers.TRUNCATE TABLE
statement is transaction-safe.RetroSearch is an open source project built by @garambo | Open a GitHub Issue
Search and Browse the WWW like it's 1997 | Search results from DuckDuckGo
HTML:
3.2
| Encoding:
UTF-8
| Version:
0.7.4