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MySQL Truncate Table

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MySQL Truncate Table statement removes all the records or complete data without effecting the table structure or indexes. When you want to remove all the existing records, then the MySQL Truncate Table statement is the best option for you.

The basic syntax of the MySQL Truncate statement is 

TRUNCATE TABLE `Schema_Name`.`Table_Name`

We are going to use the following table to demonstrate this MySQL Truncate table.

MySQL Truncate Table Statement 1

MySQL Truncate Table Example

In this example, we are going to truncate the above-specified table.

TRUNCATE TABLE sqltest.empdetails;

OUTPUT

MySQL Truncate Table Statement 2

Let us see the data in the above table

SELECT EmpID, `FirstName`, `LastName`,Education, 
       Occupation, YearlyIncome, Sales, HireDate
FROM sqltest.empdetails;

OUTPUT

MySQL Truncate Table Statement 3

As you can see, it returned 0 records.

By viewing the above results, you might wonder why we need Truncate when the Delete Statement without Where Clause can do similarly?. 

  • Well, the Truncate table automatically reset the AUTO_INCREMENT counter to the starting point, which is not the possible case for Delete statement.
  • The truncate table statement drops the existing table and recreates the same. Because of this, any Delete triggers won’t fire during truncate.

Truncate Table using Command Prompt

It is another example of a Truncate statement using the command prompt or Terminal.

TRUNCATE TABLE sqltest.employeedetails;

OUTPUT

MySQL Truncate Table Statement 4

Truncate Table using Workbench

If you can access the MySQL Workbench then it was easy to truncate tables. First, select and right-click on the table that you want to truncate. Next, select the Truncate Table option

MySQL Truncate Table Statement 5

It opens a pop-up window

MySQL Truncate Table Statement 6

If you want, you can review the SQL query generated by this option by selecting the Review SQL

MySQL Truncate Table Statement 7

Or else, simply click the Truncate button

MySQL Truncate all Tables

In MySQL, you can use the information_schema to get all the tables in a Database. From there, you can truncate the tables.

For instance, the below query returns all the tables in a database. It is instrumental in finding the list of tables available for you. Then perform the required operations.

SELECT TABLE_NAME
FROM information_schema.tables
WHERE table_schema = 'sqltest'

OUTPUT

MySQL Truncate All Tables 8

Next, you can use the Truncate table statement to truncate one after the other.

TRUNCATE TABLE department

Or, You can use the below code to generate a statement to truncate all tables in MySQL

SELECT CONCAT('TRUNCATe TABLE ' , TABLE_NAME )
FROM information_schema.tables
WHERE table_schema = 'sqltest'

The above code returns the truncate table statements for all the tables. You can simply copy and execute those codes.