Delete a MySQL Database on Linux via Command Line Print

First we’ll login to the MySQL server from the command line with the following command:

mysql -u root -p

In this case, I’ve specified the user root with the -u flag, and then used the -p flag so MySQL prompts for a password. Enter your current password to complete the login. 

If you need to change your root (or any other) password in the database, then follow this tutorial on changing a password for MySQL via the command line.

You should now be at a MySQL prompt that looks very similar to this:

mysql>

Follow this tutorial if you have not yet created a database, or you want a list of databases.

Delete a Database in MySQL

It only takes one simple command to delete a database in MySQL, but BEWARE; dropping a database can not be undone! The command is as follows:

DROP DATABASE tutorial_database;

If a database of the name tutorial_database does not exist, then you’ll receive this error:

ERROR 1008 (HY000): Can't drop database 'tutorial_database'; database doesn't exist

To avoid seeing this error use the following command instead:

DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS tutorial_database;

The above command will only drop the database tutorial_database if a database of that name exists.

View All MySQL Databases

To view a list of databases simply issue the following command:

SHOW DATABASES;

Your result should be similar to this:

mysql> SHOW DATABASES;
+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| mysql              |
| test               |
+--------------------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)