Hive Dropping a not empty database

Question

Hi. How can I drop a non-empty database? I have some tables in the database and when I try to drop it using the below command:

DROP DATABASE employee;

I get an error telling that the database cannot be dropped because it is not empty.

Answer 1

This behavior is because Hive by default doesn't let you drop database containing any tables. There are two modes of dropping databases in Hive: RESTRICT and CASCADE. By default, Hive is in RESTRICT mode and if you want to drop a database with tables, then you'll have to use the CASCADE mode. Refer to the below command:

DROP DATABASE employee CASCADE;