I’m already at peace with the fact that I’ll never know all of SQL Server’s secrets, but that doesn’t stop me from being surprised every time I figure out something new. In this case, it’s another “secret” hiding in plain sight (Books Online). It turns out that the DROP DATABASE statement doesn’t just have to drop one database. BOL shows that multiple databases can be specified when separated with commas. Let’s see it in action. First, create 4 databases: CREATE DATABASE DB1; CREATE DATABASE DB2; CREATE DATABASE DB3; CREATE DATABASE DB5; Now drop them: DROP DATABASE DB1, DB2, DB3, DB5; Yep, all gone. But what if there’s an error? Re-run the CREATE statements above, but now let’s drop 5 databases instead of 4. DB4 doesn’t exist (much like Terminal 4 at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport). DROP DATABASE DB1, DB2, DB3, DB4, DB5; The above statement will throw an error that it is unable to drop DB4 because that database doesn’t exist, but the other 4 databases are dropped without incident. The same will happen if a user is connected to one of the databases: that one will remain, but all others will be dropped. So there you have it: you can drop multiple databases with a single statement in SQL Server. (According to Books Online this does not work in Windows Azure SQL Database.) It’s amazing the things you can learn from reading documentation!
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