How to Delete a Database in MySQL/MariaDB

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MySQL via Command Line 102: Basic User Interaction

Getting Started

These instructions intend to show how to delete a database in MySQL. We will be working from a Liquid Web Core Managed Linux server with CentOS 7.

Video by Andrew Casares

First, we'll log in to the MySQL server from the command line as root with the following command.

mysql -u root -p

In this case, I've specified the user root with the -u flag and then used the -p flag, so MySQL prompts for a password. Enter your current password to complete the login. If you need to change your root (or any other) password in the database, follow this tutorial to change a password for MySQL via the command line.

You should now be at a MySQL prompt that looks very similar to this.

mysql>

Follow this tutorial if you have not yet created a database or you want a list of databases.

Delete a Database in MySQL

It only takes a straightforward command to delete a database in MySQL, but BEWARE; when you remove a MySQL database, you can not undo it! 

The following is the command to delete your database in MySQL. If the database tutorial_database exists, the command will altogether remove it.

DROP DATABASE tutorial_database;

If a database with the name tutorial_database does not exist, then you'll receive this error.

ERROR 1008 (HY000): Can't drop database 'tutorial_database'; database doesn't exist

To avoid seeing this error use the following command instead.

DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS tutorial_database;

The above command will only drop the database tutorial_database if a database of that name exists.

View All MySQL Databases

To view a list of databases, simply issue the following command.

SHOW DATABASES;

Your result should be similar to this.

mysql> SHOW DATABASES;
 +--------------------+
 | Database           |
 +--------------------+
 | information_schema |
 | mysql              |
 | test               |
 +--------------------+
 4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we covered how to delete a MySQL database from the command line in Linux. We also showed how to view your databases as well. If you prefer a visual tutorial, we included a handy video that presents a visual representation of removing your MySQL database.

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