NAME

       TRUNCATE - empty a table or set of tables

SYNOPSIS

       TRUNCATE [ TABLE ] [ ONLY ] name [ * ] [, ... ]
           [ RESTART IDENTITY | CONTINUE IDENTITY ] [ CASCADE | RESTRICT ]

DESCRIPTION

       TRUNCATE quickly removes all rows from a set of tables. It has the same effect as an
       unqualified DELETE on each table, but since it does not actually scan the tables it is
       faster. Furthermore, it reclaims disk space immediately, rather than requiring a
       subsequent VACUUM operation. This is most useful on large tables.

PARAMETERS

       name
           The name (optionally schema-qualified) of a table to truncate. If ONLY is specified
           before the table name, only that table is truncated. If ONLY is not specified, the
           table and all its descendant tables (if any) are truncated. Optionally, * can be
           specified after the table name to explicitly indicate that descendant tables are
           included.

       RESTART IDENTITY
           Automatically restart sequences owned by columns of the truncated table(s).

       CONTINUE IDENTITY
           Do not change the values of sequences. This is the default.

       CASCADE
           Automatically truncate all tables that have foreign-key references to any of the named
           tables, or to any tables added to the group due to CASCADE.

       RESTRICT
           Refuse to truncate if any of the tables have foreign-key references from tables that
           are not listed in the command. This is the default.

NOTES

       You must have the TRUNCATE privilege on a table to truncate it.

       TRUNCATE acquires an ACCESS EXCLUSIVE lock on each table it operates on, which blocks all
       other concurrent operations on the table. When RESTART IDENTITY is specified, any
       sequences that are to be restarted are likewise locked exclusively. If concurrent access
       to a table is required, then the DELETE command should be used instead.

       TRUNCATE cannot be used on a table that has foreign-key references from other tables,
       unless all such tables are also truncated in the same command. Checking validity in such
       cases would require table scans, and the whole point is not to do one. The CASCADE option
       can be used to automatically include all dependent tables — but be very careful when using
       this option, or else you might lose data you did not intend to!

       TRUNCATE will not fire any ON DELETE triggers that might exist for the tables. But it will
       fire ON TRUNCATE triggers. If ON TRUNCATE triggers are defined for any of the tables, then
       all BEFORE TRUNCATE triggers are fired before any truncation happens, and all AFTER
       TRUNCATE triggers are fired after the last truncation is performed and any sequences are
       reset. The triggers will fire in the order that the tables are to be processed (first
       those listed in the command, and then any that were added due to cascading).

       TRUNCATE is not MVCC-safe. After truncation, the table will appear empty to concurrent
       transactions, if they are using a snapshot taken before the truncation occurred. See
       Section 13.5 for more details.

       TRUNCATE is transaction-safe with respect to the data in the tables: the truncation will
       be safely rolled back if the surrounding transaction does not commit.

       When RESTART IDENTITY is specified, the implied ALTER SEQUENCE RESTART operations are also
       done transactionally; that is, they will be rolled back if the surrounding transaction
       does not commit. Be aware that if any additional sequence operations are done on the
       restarted sequences before the transaction rolls back, the effects of these operations on
       the sequences will be rolled back, but not their effects on currval(); that is, after the
       transaction currval() will continue to reflect the last sequence value obtained inside the
       failed transaction, even though the sequence itself may no longer be consistent with that.
       This is similar to the usual behavior of currval() after a failed transaction.

       TRUNCATE is not currently supported for foreign tables. This implies that if a specified
       table has any descendant tables that are foreign, the command will fail.

EXAMPLES

       Truncate the tables bigtable and fattable:

           TRUNCATE bigtable, fattable;

       The same, and also reset any associated sequence generators:

           TRUNCATE bigtable, fattable RESTART IDENTITY;

       Truncate the table othertable, and cascade to any tables that reference othertable via
       foreign-key constraints:

           TRUNCATE othertable CASCADE;

COMPATIBILITY

       The SQL:2008 standard includes a TRUNCATE command with the syntax TRUNCATE TABLE
       tablename. The clauses CONTINUE IDENTITY/RESTART IDENTITY also appear in that standard,
       but have slightly different though related meanings. Some of the concurrency behavior of
       this command is left implementation-defined by the standard, so the above notes should be
       considered and compared with other implementations if necessary.

SEE ALSO

       DELETE(7)