The best and most efficient way is to catch the "table not found" exception: this avoids the overhead of checking if the table exists twice; and doesn't suffer from the problem that if the DROP fails for some other reason (that might be important) the exception is still raised to the caller:
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'DROP TABLE ' || table_name;
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS THEN
IF SQLCODE != -942 THEN
RAISE;
END IF;
END;
23c syntax Since version 23c, Oracle supports a simpler IF EXISTS syntax for all drop DDL:
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'DROP TABLE IF EXISTS ' || table_name;
END;
ADDENDUM
For reference, here are the equivalent blocks for other object types:
Sequence
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'DROP SEQUENCE ' || sequence_name;
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS THEN
IF SQLCODE != -2289 THEN
RAISE;
END IF;
END;
View
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'DROP VIEW ' || view_name;
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS THEN
IF SQLCODE != -942 THEN
RAISE;
END IF;
END;
Trigger
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'DROP TRIGGER ' || trigger_name;
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS THEN
IF SQLCODE != -4080 THEN
RAISE;
END IF;
END;
Index
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'DROP INDEX ' || index_name;
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS THEN
IF SQLCODE != -1418 THEN
RAISE;
END IF;
END;
Column
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'ALTER TABLE ' || table_name
|| ' DROP COLUMN ' || column_name;
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS THEN
IF SQLCODE != -904 AND SQLCODE != -942 THEN
RAISE;
END IF;
END;
Database Link
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'DROP DATABASE LINK ' || dblink_name;
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS THEN
IF SQLCODE != -2024 THEN
RAISE;
END IF;
END;
Materialized View
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'DROP MATERIALIZED VIEW ' || mview_name;
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS THEN
IF SQLCODE != -12003 THEN
RAISE;
END IF;
END;
Type
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'DROP TYPE ' || type_name;
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS THEN
IF SQLCODE != -4043 THEN
RAISE;
END IF;
END;
Constraint
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'ALTER TABLE ' || table_name
|| ' DROP CONSTRAINT ' || constraint_name;
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS THEN
IF SQLCODE != -2443 AND SQLCODE != -942 THEN
RAISE;
END IF;
END;
Scheduler Job
BEGIN
DBMS_SCHEDULER.drop_job(job_name);
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS THEN
IF SQLCODE != -27475 THEN
RAISE;
END IF;
END;
User / Schema
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'DROP USER ' || user_name;
/* you may or may not want to add CASCADE */
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS THEN
IF SQLCODE != -1918 THEN
RAISE;
END IF;
END;
Package
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'DROP PACKAGE ' || package_name;
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS THEN
IF SQLCODE != -4043 THEN
RAISE;
END IF;
END;
Procedure
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'DROP PROCEDURE ' || procedure_name;
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS THEN
IF SQLCODE != -4043 THEN
RAISE;
END IF;
END;
Function
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'DROP FUNCTION ' || function_name;
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS THEN
IF SQLCODE != -4043 THEN
RAISE;
END IF;
END;
Tablespace
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'DROP TABLESPACE ' || tablespace_name;
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS THEN
IF SQLCODE != -959 THEN
RAISE;
END IF;
END;
Synonym
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'DROP SYNONYM ' || synonym_name;
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS THEN
IF SQLCODE != -1434 THEN
RAISE;
END IF;
END;
