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Difference between DELETE, DROP and TRUNCATE in SQL

24 October 2009 No Comment

The DELETE command is used to remove rows from a table. A WHERE clause can be used to only remove some rows. If no WHERE condition is specified, all rows will be removed. After performing a DELETE operation you need to
COMMIT or ROLLBACK the transaction to make the change permanent or to undo it.

TRUNCATE removes all rows from a table. The operation cannot be rolled back. As such, TRUCATE is faster and doesn’t use as much undo space as a DELETE.

The DROP command removes a table from the database. All the tables’ rows, indexes and privileges will also be removed. The operation cannot be rolled back.

DROP and TRUNCATE are DDL commands, whereas DELETE is a DML command. Therefore DELETE operations can be rolled back (undone), while DROP and TRUNCATE operations cannot be rolled back.

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Author: Manivannan (6 Articles)

Manivannan

Manivannan obtained Masters in Computer Applications from Periar University, Salem. Presently, working as a Software Engineer in GeoEdge Technologies, Coimbatore. My primary role includes developing applications in Windows and Web using .Net, SQL Server.

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