Difference Between TRUNCATE , DELETE and DROP in SQL Server

DELETE Command in SQL

• The DELETE Statement is used to delete rows from a table.
• Syntax of a SQL DELETE Statement: DELETE FROM table_name [WHERE condition];
• NOTE: The WHERE clause in the SQL delete command is optional and it identifies the rows in the column that gets deleted. If you do not include the WHERE clause all the rows in the table are deleted, so be careful while writing a DELETE query without WHERE clause.
• SQL DELETE Example: To delete an employee with id 100 from the employee table, the SQL delete query would be like,
  DELETE FROM employee WHERE id = 100;

Truncate Meaning in SQL

• The SQL TRUNCATE command is used to delete all the rows from the table and free the space containing the table.
• Syntax to TRUNCATE a table: TRUNCATE TABLE table_name;
• SQL TRUNCATE Statement Example: To delete all the rows from the employee table, the query would be like,
  TRUNCATE TABLE employee;

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DROP Table | Column In SQL

• This SQL command is used to remove an object from the database. If you drop a table, all the rows in the table are deleted and the table structure is removed from the database. Once a table is dropped we cannot get it back, so be careful while using the DROP command. When a table is dropped all the references to the table will not be valid.
• Syntax to drop an SQL table structure: DROP TABLE table_name;
• SQL Statement Example:
  DROP TABLE employee;

Structured Query Language (SQL) is a specialized language for updating, deleting, and requesting information from databases. SQL Server is Microsoft’s relational database management system (RDBMS). It is a full-featured database primarily designed to compete against competitors Oracle Database (DB) and MySQL. Like all major RBDMS, SQL Server supports ANSI SQL, the standard SQL language.

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