TRUNCATE SQL - Language Statements TRUNCATE empty a table 1999-07-20 TRUNCATE [ TABLE ] name 1998-09-08 name The name of the table to be truncated. 1998-09-08 TRUNCATE Message returned if the table is successfully truncated. 1998-09-08 TRUNCATE quickly removes all rows from a table. It has the same effect as an unqualified DELETE but since it does not actually scan the table it is faster. This is most useful on large tables. TRUNCATE cannot be executed inside a transaction block (BEGIN/COMMIT pair), because there is no way to roll it back. Truncate the table bigtable: TRUNCATE TABLE bigtable; 1998-09-08 There is no TRUNCATE in SQL92.