I have a temporary table in the stored procedure which is causing the time out for the query as it is doing a complex calculation. I want to drop it after it is used. It was created like
DECLARE #SecondTable TABLE
Now I cannot drop it using
drop #SecondTable
in fact I have to use
drop #SecondTable
Does somebody know why?
I'm by no means a SQL guru, but why is the drop even necessary?
If it's a table variable, it will no longer exist once the stored proc exits.
I'm actually surprised that DROP #SecondTable doesn't error out on you; since you're dropping a temporary table there; not a table variable.
EDIT
So based on your comment, my updates are below:
1.) If you're using a table variable (#SecondTable); then no drop is necessary. SQL Server will take care of this for you.
2.) It sounds like your timeout is caused by the calculations using the table, not the dropping of the table itself. In this case; I'd probably recommend using a temporary table instead of a table variable; since a temporary table will let you add indexes and such to improve performance; while a table variable will not. If this still isn't sufficient; you might need to increase the timeout duration on the query.
3.) In SQL; a table variable (#SecondTable) and temporary table (#SecondTable) are two completely different things. I'd refer to the MSDN documentation for Table Variables and Temporary Tables
When deleting from a large table in Oracle - let's call it table X - does it make sense to disable table X's FKs that do not have ON DELETE CASCADE? I'm not referring to disabling FKs on other tables that link to table X, but just disabling FKs on table X to improve the performance of the DELETE statements.
I'm making the indexes on table X unusable, but the DELETE still takes a while.
I think that those FKs don't matter to the performance of the DELETE statement since we're just deleting, and not inserting or updating, so the FKs don't need to be checked. What do you think?
That seems like a really bad idea. No matter what you do, you'll have a period where referential integrity is not enforced on your database. Then you go to put the FKs back in place and, oops, someone has inserted an invalid row.
Furthermore, ALTER TABLE is a DDL statement, so executing it will commit any work up to that point. You'll lose the ability to rollback if something goes wrong elsewhere in your transaction.
Can you look through the explain plan to see why your DELETE statement is taking so long?
Eventually I didn't have to disable those FKs before the archive process starts and enable them when the process ends. But instead, in order to improve performance of the DELETE statements, we had to drop indexes before the archive process starts and recreate them after the archive process finishes. We also committed more often.
We have a table with a 150+ million records. We need to clear/delete all rows. Delete operation would take forever due to it writing to the t-logs and we cannot change our recovery model for the whole DB. We have tested the truncate table option.
What we realized that truncate deallocates pages from the table, and if I am not wrong makes them available for reuse but doesn't shrink the db automatically. So, if we want to reduce the DB size, we really would need to do run the shrink db command after truncating the table.
Is this normal procedure? Anything we need to be careful or aware about, or are there any better alternatives?
truncate is what you're looking for. If you need to slim down the db afterwards, run a shrink.
This MSDN refernce (if you're talking T-SQL) compares the behind the scenes of deleting rows versus truncating.
"Delete all rows"... wouldn't DROP TABLE (and re-recreate an empty one with same schema / indices) be preferable ? (I personally like "fresh starts" ;-) )
This said TRUNCATE TABLE is quite OK too, and yes, DBCC SHRINKFILE may be required afterwards if you wish to recover the space.
Depending on the size of the full database, the shrink may take a while; I've found it to go faster if it is shrunk in smaller chunks, rather than trying to get it back all at once.
One thing to remember with Truncate Table (as well as drop table) is going forward this will not work if you ever have foreign keys referencing the table.
As pointed out, if you can't use truncate or drop
SELECT 1
WHILE ##ROWCOUNT <> 0
DELETE TOP (100000) MyTable
You have a normal solution (truncate + shrink db) to remove all the records from a table.
As Irwin pointed out. The TRUNCATE command won't work while being referenced by a Foreign key constraint. So first drop the constraints, truncate the table and recreate the constraints.
If your concerned about performance and this is a regular routine for your system. You might want to look into moving this table to it's own data file, then run shrink only against the target datafile!
(I've tried this in MySql)
I believe they're semantically equivalent. Why not identify this trivial case and speed it up?
truncate table cannot be rolled back, it is like dropping and recreating the table.
...just to add some detail.
Calling the DELETE statement tells the database engine to generate a transaction log of all the records deleted. In the event the delete was done in error, you can restore your records.
Calling the TRUNCATE statement is a blanket "all or nothing" that removes all the records with no transaction log to restore from. It is definitely faster, but should only be done when you're sure you don't need any of the records you're going to remove.
Delete from table deletes each row from the one at a time and adds a record into the transaction log so that the operation can be rolled back. The time taken to delete is also proportional to the number of indexes on the table, and if there are any foreign key constraints (for innodb).
Truncate effectively drops the table and recreates it and can not be performed within a transaction. It therefore required fewer operations and executes quickly. Truncate also does not make use of any on delete triggers.
Exact details about why this is quicker in MySql can be found in the MySql documentation:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/truncate-table.html
Your question was about MySQL and I know little to nothing about MySQL as a product but I thought I'd add that in SQL Server a TRUNCATE statement can be rolled back. Try it for yourself
create table test1 (col1 int)
go
insert test1 values(3)
begin tran
truncate table test1
select * from test1
rollback tran
select * from test1
In SQL Server TRUNCATE is logged, it's just not logged in such a verbose way as DELETE is logged. I believe it's referred to as a minimally logged operation. Effectively the data pages still contain the data but their extents have been marked for deletion. As long as the data pages still exist you can roll back the truncate. Hope this is helpful. I'd be interested to know the results if somebody tries it on MySQL.
For MySql 5 using InnoDb as the storage engine, TRUNCATE acts just like DELETE without a WHERE clause: i.e. for large tables it takes ages because it deletes rows one-by-one. This is changing in version 6.x.
see
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/truncate-table.html
for 5.1 info (row-by-row with InnoDB) and
http://blogs.mysql.com/peterg/category/personal-opinion/
for changes in 6.x
Editor's note
This answer is clearly contradicted by the MySQL documentation:
"For an InnoDB table before version 5.0.3, InnoDB processes TRUNCATE TABLE by deleting rows one by one. As of MySQL 5.0.3, row by row deletion is used only if there are any FOREIGN KEY constraints that reference the table. If there are no FOREIGN KEY constraints, InnoDB performs fast truncation by dropping the original table and creating an empty one with the same definition, which is much faster than deleting rows one by one."
Truncate is on a table level, while Delete is on a row level. If you would translate this to sql in an other syntax, truncate would be:
DELETE * FROM table
thus deleting all rows at once, while DELETE statement (in PHPMyAdmin) goes like:
DELETE * FROM table WHERE id = 1
DELETE * FROM table WHERE id = 2
Just until the table is empty. Each query taking a number of (milli)seconds which add up to taking longer than a truncate.
I have some tables that I build as a part of my report rollup. I don't need them afterwards at all. Someone mentioned to truncate them as it would be faster.
Deleting records from a table logs every deletion and executes delete triggers for the records deleted. Truncate is a more powerful command that empties a table without logging each row. SQL Server prevents you from truncating a table with foreign keys referencing it, because of the need to check the foreign keys on each row.
Truncate is normally ultra-fast, ideal for cleaning out data from a temporary table. It does preserve the structure of the table for future use.
If you actually want to remove the table definitions as well as the data, simply drop the tables.
See this MSDN article for more info
DROP TABLE deletes the table.
TRUNCATE TABLE empties it, but leaves its structure for future data.
DROP and TRUNC do different things:
TRUNCATE TABLE
Removes all rows from a table without
logging the individual row deletions.
TRUNCATE TABLE is similar to the
DELETE statement with no WHERE clause;
however, TRUNCATE TABLE is faster and
uses fewer system and transaction log
resources.
DROP TABLE
Removes one or more table definitions
and all data, indexes, triggers,
constraints, and permission
specifications for those tables.
As far as speed is concerned the difference should be small. And anyway if you don't need the table structure at all, certainly use DROP.
I think you means the difference between DELETE TABLE and TRUNCATE TABLE.
DROP TABLE
remove the table from the database.
DELETE TABLE
without a condition delete all rows. If there are trigger and references then this will process for every row. Also a index will be modify if there one.
TRUNCATE TABLE
set the row count zero and without logging each row. That it is many faster as the other both.
None of these answer point out an important difference about these two operations. Drop table is an operation that can be rolled back. However, truncate cannot be rolled back ['TRUNCATE TABLE' can be rolled back as well]. In this way dropping a very large table can be very expensive if there are many rows, because they all have to be recorded in a temporary space in case you decide to roll it back.
Usually, if I want to get rid of a large table, I will truncate it, then drop it. This way the data will be nixed without record, and the table can be dropped, and that drop will be very inexpensive because no data needs to be recorded.
It is important to point out though that truncate just deletes data, leaving the table, while drop will, in fact, delete the data and the table itself. (assuming foreign keys don't preclude such an action)
DROP Table
DROP TABLE [table_name];
The DROP command is used to remove a table from the database. It is a DDL command. All the rows, indexes and privileges of the table will also be removed. DROP operation cannot be rolled back.
DELETE Table
DELETE FROM [table_name]
WHERE [condition];
DELETE FROM [table_name];
The DELETE command is a DML command. It can be used to delete all the rows or some rows from the table based on the condition specified in WHERE clause. It is executed using a row lock, each row in the table is locked for deletion. It maintain the transaction log, so it is slower than TRUNCATE.
DELETE operations can be rolled back.
TRUNCATE Table
TRUNCATE TABLE [table_name];
The TRUNCATE command removes all rows from a table. It won't log the deletion of each row, instead it logs the deallocation of the data pages of the table, which makes it faster than DELETE. It is executed using a table lock and whole table is locked for remove all records. It is a DDL command. TRUNCATE operations cannot be rolled back.
TRUNCATE TABLE keeps all of your old indexing and whatnot. DROP TABLE would, obviously, get rid of the table and require you to recreate it later.
Drop gets rid of the table completely, removing the definition as well. Truncate empties the table but does not get rid of the definition.
Truncating the table empties the table. Dropping the table deletes it entirely. Either one will be fast, but dropping it will likely be faster (depending on your database engine).
If you don't need it anymore, drop it so it's not cluttering up your schema.
DELETE TableA instead of TRUNCATE TableA?
A common misconception is that they do the same thing. Not
so. In fact, there are many differences between the two.
DELETE is a logged operation on a per row basis. This means
that the deletion of each row gets logged and physically deleted.
You can DELETE any row that will not violate a constraint, while leaving the foreign key or any other contraint in place.
TRUNCATE is also a logged operation, but in a different way.
TRUNCATE logs the deallocation of the data pages in which the data
exists. The deallocation of data pages means that your data
rows still actually exist in the data pages, but the
extents have been marked as empty for reuse. This is what
makes TRUNCATE a faster operation to perform over DELETE.
You cannot TRUNCATE a table that has any foreign key
constraints. You will have to remove the contraints, TRUNCATE the
table, and reapply the contraints.
TRUNCATE will reset any identity columns to the default seed
value.
truncate removes all the rows, but not the table itself, it is essentially equivalent to deleting with no where clause, but usually faster.
I have a correction for one of the statements above... "truncate cannot be rolled back"
Truncate can be rolled back. There are some cases when you can't do a truncate or drop table, such as when you have a foreign key reference. For a task such as monthly reporting, I'd probably just drop the table once I didn't need it anymore. If I was doing this rollup reporting more often then I'd probably keep the table instead and use truncate.
Hope this helps, here's some more info that you should find useful...
Please see the following article for more details:
http://sqlblog.com/blogs/denis_gobo/archive/2007/06/13/1458.aspx
Also, for more details on delete vs. truncate, see this article:
http://www.sql-server-performance.com/faq/delete_truncate_difference_p1.aspx
Thanks!
Jeff
TRUNCATE TABLE is functionally
identical to DELETE statement with no
WHERE clause: both remove all rows in
the table. But TRUNCATE TABLE is
faster and uses fewer system and
transaction log resources than DELETE.
The DELETE statement removes rows one
at a time and records an entry in the
transaction log for each deleted row.
TRUNCATE TABLE removes the data by
deallocating the data pages used to
store the table's data, and only the
page deallocations are recorded in the
transaction log.
TRUNCATE TABLE removes all rows from a
table, but the table structure and its
columns, constraints, indexes and so
on remain. The counter used by an
identity for new rows is reset to the
seed for the column. If you want to
retain the identity counter, use
DELETE instead. If you want to remove
table definition and its data, use the
DROP TABLE statement.
You cannot use TRUNCATE TABLE on a
table referenced by a FOREIGN KEY
constraint; instead, use DELETE
statement without a WHERE clause.
Because TRUNCATE TABLE is not logged,
it cannot activate a trigger.
TRUNCATE TABLE may not be used on
tables participating in an indexed
view.
From http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa260621(SQL.80).aspx
In the SQL standard, DROP table removes the table and the table schema - TRUNCATE removes all rows.
The answers here match up to the question, but I'm going to answer the question you didn't ask. "Should I use truncate or delete?" If you are removing all rows from a table, you'll typically want to truncate, since it's much much faster. Why is it much faster? At least in the case of Oracle, it resets the high water mark. This is basically a dereferencing of the data and allows the db to reuse it for something else.
DELETE VS TRUNCATE
The DELETE statement removes rows one at a time and records an entry in the transaction
log for each deleted row. TRUNCATE TABLE removes the data by deallocating the data
pages used to store the table data and records only the page deallocations in the
transaction log
We can use WHERE clause in DELETE but in TRUNCATE you cannot use it
When the DELETE statement is executed using a row lock, each row in the table is locked
for deletion. TRUNCATE TABLE always locks the table and page but not each row
After a DELETE statement is executed, the table can still contain empty pages.If the
delete operation does not use a table lock, the table (heap) will contain many empty
pages. For indexes, the delete operation can leave empty pages behind, although these
pages will be deallocated quickly by a background cleanup process
TRUNCATE TABLE removes all rows from a table, but the table structure and its columns,
constraints, indexes, and so on remain
DELETE statement doesn't RESEED identity column but TRUNCATE statement RESEEDS the
IDENTITY column
You cannot use TRUNCATE TABLE on tables that:
Are referenced by a FOREIGN KEY constraint. (You can truncate a table that has a
foreign key that references itself.)
Participate in an indexed view.
Are published by using transactional replication or merge replication
TRUNCATE TABLE cannot activate a trigger because the operation does not log individual
row deletions
Drop
drop whole table and all its structure
truncate
delete all rows from table
it is different from delete that it also delete indexes of rows
Delete Statement
Delete Statement delete table rows and return the number of rows is deleted from the table.in this statement, we use where clause to deleted data from the table
Delete Statement is slower than Truncate statement because it deleted records one by one
Truncate Statement
Truncate statement Deleted or removing all the rows from the table.
It is faster than the Delete Statement because it deleted all the records from the table
Truncate statement not return the no of rows are deleted from the table
Drop statement
Drop statement deleted all records as well as the structure of the table
DELETE
The DELETE command is used to remove rows from a table. A WHERE clause can be used to only remove some rows. If no WHERE condition is specified, all rows will be removed. After performing a DELETE operation you need to
COMMIT or ROLLBACK the transaction to make the change permanent or to undo it.
TRUNCATE
TRUNCATE removes all rows from a table. The operation cannot be rolled back ... As such, TRUCATE is faster and doesn't use as much undo space as a DELETE.
From: http://www.orafaq.com/faq/difference_between_truncate_delete_and_drop_commands