How to drop a table if it exists in SQL Server?

Question

The table name is Scores.

Is it correct to do the following?

IF EXISTS(SELECT *

          FROM   dbo.Scores)

  DROP TABLE dbo.Scores 

Answer 1

No, the code you have mentioned isn’t correct. If you use that code, it will drop the table only if it contains any rows and it’ll result in an error if the table does not exist.

You can refer to this video for DROP Table.

You can use this code instead of a permanent table.

IF OBJECTA_ID('dbo.Scores', 'U') IS NOT NULL 

  DROP TABLE dbo.Scores; 

Or

Are you interested in learning SQL from scratch! Have a look at this interesting video on SQL provided by Intellipaat:

For a Temporary table you can use this code:

IF OBJECTA_ID('tempdb.dbo.#T1', 'U') IS NOT NULL

  DROP TABLE #T1;