DROP [TEMPORARY] TABLE [IF EXISTS] tbl_name [, tbl_name,...] [RESTRICT | CASCADE]

DROP TABLE removes one or more tables. All table data and the table definition are removed, so be careful with this command!

In MySQL Version 3.22 or later, you can use the keywords IF EXISTS to prevent an error from occurring for tables that don't exist. In 4.1 one gets a NOTE for all not existing tables when using IF EXISTS. See section 13.5.3.9 SHOW WARNINGS | ERRORS.

RESTRICT and CASCADE are allowed to make porting easier. For the moment they don't do anything.

Note: DROP TABLE automatically commits the current active transaction (except if you are using 4.1 and the TEMPORARY key word.

Option TEMPORARY is ignored in 4.0. In 4.1 this option works as follows:

* Only drops temporary tables.
* It doesn't end a running transactions.
* No access rights is checked.

Using TEMPORARY is a good way to ensure that you don't accidently drop a real table.

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