Drop Databases

The DROP DATABASE statement drops all tables in the database and deletes the database permanently.

DROP DATABASE [ IF EXISTS ] 
	database_name 
	[,database_name2,...];

• If you drop a database that does not exist, MySQL will issue an error.
• To prevent an error from occurring if you delete a non-existing database, you can use the IF EXISTS option.

The DROP DATABASE statement returns the number of tables it deleted.

Before deleting a database, you must ensure the following important points:

• First, the DROP DATABASE statement deletes the database and also the physical disk files used by the database. Therefore, you should have a backup of the database in case you want to restore it in the future.
• Second, you cannot drop the database that is currently being used.

Trying to drop a database currently being used causes the following error:

Cannot drop database "database_name" because it is currently in use.

The following example uses the DROP DATABASE statement to delete the TestDb database:

DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS TestDb;