dropdb

1 Application

dropdb

remove a PostgreSQL database

       dropdb
       options
       dbname

## Description

dropdb destroys an existing PostgreSQL database. The user who executes this command must be a database superuser or the owner of the database.

dropdb is a shell script wrapper around the SQL command SQL-DROPDATABASE-title via the PostgreSQL interactive terminal APP-PSQL. Thus, there is nothing special about dropping databases via this or other methods. This means that the psql must be found by the script and that a database server is running at the targeted host. Also, any default settings and environment variables available to psql and the libpq front-end library do apply.

## Options

dropdb accepts the following command-line arguments:

`dbname`

- Specifies the name of the database to be removed. The database must be one of the existing PostgreSQL databases in this installation.

`-e`

`--echo`

- Echo the queries that dropdb generates and sends to the server.

`-i`

`--interactive`

- Issues a verification prompt before doing anything destructive.

`-q`

`--quiet`

- Do not display a response.

createdb also accepts the following command-line arguments for connection parameters:

`-h `host``

`--host `host``

- Specifies the host name of the machine on which the server is running. If host begins with a slash, it is used as the directory for the Unix domain socket.

`-p `port``

`--port `port``

- Specifies the Internet TCP/IP port or local Unix domain socket file extension on which the server is listening for connections.

`-U `username``

`--username `username``

- User name to connect as

`-W`

`--password`

- Force password prompt.

## Diagnostics

`DROP DATABASE`

- The database was successfully removed.

`dropdb: Database removal failed.`

- Something didn't work out.

If there is an error condition, the backend error message will be displayed. See SQL-DROPDATABASE-title and APP-PSQL for possibilities.

## Environment

`PGHOST`

`PGPORT`

`PGUSER`

- Default connection parameters

## Examples

To destroy the database `demo` on the default database server:

    $ dropdb demo
    DROP DATABASE

To destroy the database `demo` using the server on host `eden`, port 5000, with verification and a peek at the underlying query:

    $ dropdb -p 5000 -h eden -i -e demo
    Database "demo" will be permanently deleted.
    Are you sure? (y/n) y
    DROP DATABASE "demo"
    DROP DATABASE

## See Also

- app-createdb
- sql-dropdatabase-title