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databricksdelta-lake

Databricks drop a delta table?

How can I drop a Delta Table in Databricks? I can't find any information in the docs... maybe the only solution is to delete the files inside the folder 'delta' with the magic command or dbutils:

%fs rm -r delta/mytable?

EDIT:

For clarification, I put here a very basic example.

Example:

#create dataframe...
from pyspark.sql.types import *

cSchema = StructType([StructField("items", StringType())\
                      ,StructField("number", IntegerType())])

test_list = [['furniture', 1], ['games', 3]]

df = spark.createDataFrame(test_list,schema=cSchema)

and save it in a Delta table

df.write.format("delta").mode("overwrite").save("/delta/test_table")

Then, if I try to delete it.. it's not possible with drop table or similar action

%SQL
DROP TABLE 'delta.test_table'

neither other options like drop table 'delta/test_table', etc, etc...

Solution

  • If you want to completely remove the table then a dbutils command is the way to go:

    dbutils.fs.rm('/delta/test_table',recurse=True)

    From my understanding the delta table you've saved is sitting within blob storage. Dropping the connected database table will drop it from the database, but not from storage.