Microsoft® SQL Server 2012 Unleashed

Dropping Tables

There are several different methods for dropping (or deleting) a table. You can right-click the table in the SSMS Object Explorer and select Delete, you can right-click a table in a database diagram and choose Delete Tables from Database, or you can use the old-fashioned method of utilizing T-SQL. Here’s an example of the T-SQL DROP TABLE statement:

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DROP TABLE [HumanResources].[Department]

You can reference multiple tables in a single DROP TABLE command by separating the table names with commas. Any triggers and constraints associated with the table are also dropped when the table is dropped.

A big consideration when dropping a table is the table’s relationship to other tables. If a foreign key references ...