Drop all tables sharing the same prefix in postgres

I would like to delete all tables sharing the same prefix ('supenh_agk') from the same database, using one sql command/query.

To do this in one command you need dynamic SQL with EXECUTE in a DO statement (or function):

DO $do$ DECLARE _tbl text; BEGIN FOR _tbl IN SELECT quote_ident(table_schema) || '.' || quote_ident(table_name) -- escape identifier and schema-qualify! FROM information_schema.tables WHERE table_name LIKE 'prefix' || '%' -- your table name prefix AND table_schema NOT LIKE 'pg_%' -- exclude system schemas LOOP RAISE NOTICE '%', -- EXECUTE 'DROP TABLE ' || _tbl; END LOOP; END $do$;

This includes tables from all schemas the current user has access to. I excluded system schemas for safety.

If you do not escape identifiers properly the code fails for any non-standard identifier that requires double-quoting.

Plus, you run the risk of allowing SQL injection . All user input must be sanitized in dynamic code - that includes identifiers potentially provided by users.

Potentially hazardous!All those tables are dropped for good. I built in a safety. Inspect the generated statements before you actually execute: comment RAISE and uncomment the EXECUTE .

Closely related:

Update column in multiple tables Changing all zeros (if any) across all columns (in a table) to... say 1

Alternativelyyou could build on the catalog table pg_class , which also provides the oid of the table and is faster:

... FOR _tbl IN SELECT c.oid::regclass::text -- escape identifier and schema-qualify! FROM pg_catalog.pg_class c JOIN pg_catalog.pg_namespace n ON n.oid = c.relnamespace WHERE n.nspname NOT LIKE 'pg_%' -- exclude system schemas AND c.relname LIKE 'prefix' || '%' -- your table name prefix AND c.relkind = 'r' -- only tables ...

System catalog or information schema?

How to check if a table exists in a given schema

How does c.oid::regclass defend against SQL injection?

Table name as a PostgreSQL function parameter