notes/content/database/truncate-database.md

title	tags	emoji
Truncate a database from the inside	PostgreSQL	🐘

How to delete database from the inside, with only access to that database.

The primary way this works is by using pg_dump's ability to drop a schema before recreating it.

This creates a dump of the database without any data, and with a fresh schema (drop then rebuild). This output is then grep'd to only contain the drops.

pg_dump -cs "postgres://<database url>" | grep DROP > drops.psql.sql

Now run the drops. These drops are specifically designed for this schema so should be complete and in the correct order.

psql "postgres://<database url>" < drops.psql.sql