Why is DROP DBSPACE IF EXISTS gone?

[Former Member]

It was possible in 11.0.1 but is not valid as of 12.0.0. It was a useful shortcut, is there a simple rationale behind the decision?

[MarkCulp · Accepted solution]

Are you sure it actually existed in SA 11? I checked the source code history and the best that I can tell the code never supported it. I see that the documentation makes references to it (in the Remarks section) but the syntax on that same page does not (which AFAICT is correct). I think it must have been a documentation error in v11.0.1?

[Breck_Carter · Accepted solution]

FWIW it looks like the IQ Help still uses the one-big-DROP-Help-Topic, and DROP DBSPACES is the only one that does not support IF EXISTS.

I suspect the V11.0.1 Help accidentally included that sentence in the DROP DBSPACE topic when they were split apart from the one-big-DROP-Help-Topic in V10.

[MarkCulp · Accepted solution]

Yep, I think there was a copy-and-paste error when preparing the v11.0.1 docs.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Right, the question was regarding the docs; I never tried it on v11.0.1 actually. Thanks.

[Former Member]

I've added a comment on the 11.0.1 docs (DCX) to clarify the fact that IF EXISTS is not supported on the DROP DBSPACE topic. Sorry for the confusion, and thank you for alerting us!

[Former Member]

Thanks for the time.

[Breck_Carter]

Here is a technique that might help:

BEGIN
   DROP DBSPACE whatever;
   EXCEPTION WHEN OTHERS THEN
END;

If the DBSPACE does not exist, the empty EXCEPTION handler hides the symptom. This works for all kinds of DROP statements.

It doesn't work properly if there is some other reason the DROP fails (security, etc).

[Former Member]

Thanks for the alternative and the remark!