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From: Ray O'Donnell <[email protected]>
To: Darren Duncan <[email protected]>
To: pgAdmin Support <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Naming Object commands "Delete" is a source of user errors
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2025 07:38:05 +0000
Message-ID: <01020198122b4fa8-37d1f889-e6c1-4bb9-87a4-1b3ca0ffc8c3-000000@eu-west-1.amazonses.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>



On 16 July 2025 08:19:09 Darren Duncan <[email protected]> wrote:

> I am finding that it is a recurring and damaging source of user error that
> Object/Explorer commands named "Delete" actually correspond to SQL DROP rather
> than SQL DELETE or TRUNCATE. Multiple times I have accidentally dropped tables
> when I meant to just truncate them.

In fairness, you don't (SQL) DELTE tables - you delete their rows, hence 
the command is DELETE FROM. And it is intuitive that when you right-click 
on an object and click "Delete", it is the object itself which gets zapped. 
Also, TRUNCATE is there in the menu too.

Having said that, I recall that the menu used to say "Drop" rather than 
"Delete", which IMHO is clearer to SQL-savvy people.... it got changed at 
some point.

Ray.



>
> I created a GitHub issue requesting to rename the "Delete" commands to 
> "Drop" to
> help avoid this regular source of cognitive dissonance that leads to errors.
>
> https://github.com/pgadmin-org/pgadmin4/issues/8958
>
> I'm also mentioning the issue in this support list to help draw attention 
> to it.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Darren Duncan

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