DROP ROLE
DROP ROLE
DROP ROLE - remove a database role
Synopsis
DROP ROLE [ IF EXISTS ] name [, ...]
Description
DROP ROLE
removes the specified role(s).
To drop a superuser role, you must be a superuser yourself;
to drop non-superuser roles, you must have
CREATEROLE
privilege and have been granted
ADMIN OPTION
on the role.
A role cannot be removed if it is still referenced in any database
of the cluster; an error will be raised if so. Before dropping the role,
you must drop all the objects it owns (or reassign their ownership)
and revoke any privileges the role has been granted on other objects.
The
REASSIGN
OWNED
and
DROP
OWNED
commands can be useful for this purpose; see
Section 21.4
for more discussion.
However, it is not necessary to remove role memberships involving
the role;
DROP ROLE
automatically revokes any memberships
of the target role in other roles, and of other roles in the target role.
The other roles are not dropped nor otherwise affected.
Parameters
-
IF EXISTS -
Do not throw an error if the role does not exist. A notice is issued in this case.
-
name -
The name of the role to remove.
Notes
PostgreSQL includes a program dropuser that has the same functionality as this command (in fact, it calls this command) but can be run from the command shell.
Examples
To drop a role:
DROP ROLE jonathan;
Compatibility
The SQL standard defines
DROP ROLE
, but it allows
only one role to be dropped at a time, and it specifies different
privilege requirements than
PostgreSQL
uses.