In Python, the “DELETE FROM” statement is used to remove data from a MySQL table.

Wheras the “DELETE FROM” statement points to the table to use, the “WHERE” statement points to which row or rows will be deleted. Without the “WHERE” statement, all rows in the table will be deleted.

import mysql.connector

mydb = mysql.connector.connect(
    host="localhost",
    user="myusername",
    password="mypassword",
    database="mydatabase"
)

mycursor = mydb.cursor()

sql = "DELETE FROM customers WHERE age = 57"

mycursor.execute(sql)

mydb.commit()

print(mycursor.rowcount, "record(s) deleted")

Output:

1 record(s) deleted

The “DROP TABLE” statement is used to delete an existing table

import mysql.connector

mydb = mysql.connector.connect(
    host="localhost",
    user="myusername",
    password="mypassword",
    database="mydatabase"
)

mycursor = mydb.cursor()

sql = "DROP TABLE customers"

mycursor.execute(sql)

Output:

#If no errors are thrown, the table has been successfully deleted

Using the “IF EXISTS” keyword, the table will be deleted only if it exists. This avoids throwing an error for trying to delete a non-existent table.

import mysql.connector

mydb = mysql.connector.connect(
    host="localhost",
    user="myusername",
    password="mypassword",
    database="mydatabase"
)

mycursor = mydb.cursor()

sql = "DROP TABLE IF EXISTS customers"

mycursor.execute(sql)

Output:

#The table will be deleted, but only if it exists; no errors will be thrown either way

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