Drop tables with dashes in the name

Question

I need to delete all tables which name has the pattern '%-%-%-%-%'. The best way to do it I found so far is to do it in 2 steps:

1. Generate the deletion request as by calling the request below

   SELECT ' DROP TABLE ' + REPLACE(TABLE_NAME, '-', NCHAR(8211)) FROM information_schema.tables where TABLE_NAME like '%-%-%-%-%' ORDER BY TABLE_NAME

2. Run the deletion request.

Unfortunately step 2. does not work. Even if I REPLACE(TABLE_NAME, '-', NCHAR(8211)), I still get Msg 102, Level 15, State 1, Line 1 Incorrect syntax near '0'. etc.; 0 appreas in the message because the first line of deletion request is DROP TABLE 0df78d48–c718–49be–ab55–5f158ebdd64c–results.

Could you help? Thanks!

Answer 1

Placing square brackets around the table names should give you the result you want.

Example:

DROP TABLE [0df78d48–c718–49be–ab55–5f158ebdd64c–results]