truncate(7)

truncate7

Empty a table

Usage

TRUNCATE [ TABLE ] name

Overview

TRUNCATE quickly removes all rows from a table. It has the same effect as an unqualified DELETE but since it does not actually scan the table it is faster. This is most useful on large tables.

Parameters

name

The name (optionally schema-qualified) of the table to be truncated.

Notes

TRUNCATE cannot be used if there are foreign-key references to the table from other tables. Checking validity in such cases would require table scans, and the whole point is not to do one.

TRUNCATE will not run any user-defined ON DELETE triggers that might exist for the table.

Examples

Truncate the table bigtable:

TRUNCATE TABLE bigtable;

Compatibility

There is no TRUNCATE command in the SQL standard.

From postgresql 7.4.7-6sarge6 in Debian 3.1 (Sarge). Parsed by carta from the page's man source.