Remove multiple tables across WPMU database

Towards what end?

I ask because if you just delete tables, you can break things. So what’s the end goal?

The end goal is to remove old tables created by old inactive plugins.

I understand about removing tables and breaking things. This is not an issue for me, but thanks for the heads up.

I can kindof picture the code in my head in old school basic:

for $x = 1 to 999
$table_name = ‘wp_’.$x.’_table’;
$wpdb->query(‘DROP TABLE IF_EXISTS ‘.$table_name);
next $x

Don’t laugh to hard. I just figured there is a dedicated sql query or easy php function to do this available.

Cheers

Solid ?? Just making sure.

This is not actually a WordPress thing. I mean, yes, it is in that the plugins should clean up after themselves, but it’s not something you want to RUN via WordPress.

Even PHPMyAdmin doesn’t let you drop wildcard tables. If you really wanted to do that, it’d be a mySQL command line thing.

I’d pop open phpMyAdmin, check the tables I want to drop, and drop ’em all that way. AFTER making a backup of course ??

I understand that this is not a WordPress specific thing.

I just figured someone has done something like this already.

Droping the tables from searching thru 4000+ tables manually isn’t gonna be happening.

Thanks for your input. But like I said it would be a sql query(command line) or php script.

Cheers

That’s the trouble.

show tables like ‘wp_%_foobar’; works GREAT.

DROP TABLE ‘wp_%_foobar’; doesn’t work at all.

I would do the show table, copy the list to a textpad/notepad++ file. Edit it to be ‘drop table’ and paste that in if I had to.

Thanks for the % wildcard thingy. Great idea.

I melted my brain for a few mins and came up with this for a standalone php file in the root directory:

<?php
// Include WordPress
include_once('wp-config.php');
include_once('wp-load.php');
include_once('wp-includes/wp-db.php');

//configs
$WordPressDataBasePrefix = 'wp_'; //change to daatabase prefix
$tableNameToDelete = '_table'; //change to table to drop
$WPMUtotalSites = '999'; //change 999 to number of WPMU sites

//the death loop
$i = 0;
for ($n=0; $n<$WPMUtotalSites; $n++) {
$table_name = $WordPressDataBasePrefix . ++$i . $tableNameToDelete;
$wpdb->query('DROP TABLE IF_EXISTS '.$table_name);
}
?>

I’m 99% sure this will work but im havin another beer first.

Cheers

And a reeeeealy good backup first, I hope!

Ok, I finally got around to trying it and I have a syntax error in my sql query statement.

I changed:
$wpdb->query('DROP TABLE IF_EXISTS '.$table_name);
to:
$wpdb->query("DROP TABLE IF EXISTS $table_name");

It workx perfect.

Someday ill get around to making this into a plugin that you can input the tables or something.

Cheers