dropdb [ options ] dbname
Specifies the hostname of the machine on which the postmaster is running.
Specifies the Internet TCP/IP port or local Unix domain socket file extension on which the postmaster is listening for connections.
Username to connect as.
Force password prompt.
Echo the queries that dropdb generates and sends to the backend.
Do not display a response.
Issues a verification prompt before doing anything destructive.
Specifies the name of the database to be removed. The database must be one of the existing Postgres databases in this installation.
The database was successfully removed.
Something didn't work out.
dropdb destroys an existing Postgres database. The user who executes this command must be a database superuser or the owner of the database.
dropdb is a shell script wrapper around the SQL command DROP DATABASE via the Postgres interactive terminal psql. Thus, there is nothing special about dropping databases via this or other methods. This means that the psql must be found by the script and that a database server is running at the targeted host. Also, any default settings and environment variables available to psql and the libpq front-end library do apply.
To destroy the database demo on the default database server:
$ dropdb demo DROP DATABASE
To destroy the database demo using the postmaster on host eden, port 5000, with verification and a peek at the underlying query:
$ dropdb -p 5000 -h eden -i -e demo Database "demo" will be permanently deleted. Are you sure? (y/n) y DROP DATABASE "demo" DROP DATABASE