PostgreSQL - Drop view if exists

In this article, we would like to show you how to DROP VIEW IF EXISTS in PostgreSQL.

Quick solution:

DROP VIEW IF EXISTS "view_name";

Practical example

To show how the DROP VIEW IF EXISTS statement works, we will use the following table:

Note:

At the end of this article you can find database preparation SQL queries.

Example 

In this example, we will delete the Spain Users view which we created in this article.

Query:

DROP VIEW IF EXISTS "Spain Users";

Output:

Popular error

If you try to drop a view that already exists with DROP VIEW query you will get an error:

But if you try to DROP VIEW IF EXISTS you will get a warning instead:

Database preparation

create_tables.sql file:

CREATE TABLE "users" (
	"id" SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
	"name" VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,
	"email" VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,
	"country" VARCHAR(15) NOT NULL
);

insert_data.sql file:

INSERT INTO "users"
	("name", "email", "country")
VALUES
	('Tom', 'tom01@email.com', 'Poland'),
	('Chris','chris123@email.com', 'Spain'),
	('Jack','jack32@email.com', 'Spain'),
   ('Kim','kim103@email.com', 'Vietnam'),
   ('Marco','marco942@email.com', 'Italy'),
	('Kate','kate227@email.com', 'Spain'),
	('Nam','nam393@email.com', 'Vietnam');