mysql 1090_MySQL - error messages - Error: 1090 - You can't delete all columns with ALTER TABLE...

Discussion

This error message (shown in full below) arises from an ALTER TABLE operation in which you try to drop all of the columns in a table. As the error message says, you cannot remove all columns from a table using ALTER TABLE.

Error: 1090 - You can't delete all columns with ALTER TABLE; use DROP TABLE instead

SQLSTATE: 42000 (ER_CANT_REMOVE_ALL_FIELDS)

Below is a simple example of this error with a table containing only one column:

CREATE TABLE table1 (col1 char(1));

ALTER TABLE table1 DROP col1;

ERROR 1090 (42000): You can't delete all columns with ALTER TABLE;

use DROP TABLE instead

Trying to drop the last column, the only column results in error 1090. Similarly, if you have a table with multiple columns, and you try to remove them all with an ALTER TABLE, you will still get the same error:

CREATE TABLE table1 (col1 char(1), col2 char(1), col3 char(1));

ALTER TABLE table1 DROP COLUMN col1,

DROP COLUMN col2, DROP COLUMN col3;

ERROR 1090 (42000): You can't delete all columns with ALTER TABLE;

use DROP TABLE instead