Delete a Plan Guide

Article
02/28/2023

Applies to: SQL Server Azure SQL Database Azure SQL Managed Instance

You can delete (drop) a plan guide in SQL Server by using SQL Server Management Studio or Transact-SQL. Using Transact-SQL, you can also delete all of the plan guides in a database.

In This Topic

Before you begin:

Security
To delete a plan guide, using:

SQL Server Management Studio

Transact-SQL

Before You Begin

Security

Permissions

Deleting an OBJECT plan guide requires ALTER permission on the object (for example: function, stored procedure) that is referenced by the plan guide. All other plan guides require ALTER DATABASE permission.

Using SQL Server Management Studio

To delete a plan guide

Click the plus sign to expand the database in which you want to delete a plan guide, and then click the plus sign to expand the Programmability folder.
Click the plus sign to expand the Plan Guides folder.
Right-click the plan guide you want to delete and select Delete.
In the Delete Object dialog box, ensure that the correct plan guide is selected and then click OK.

Using Transact-SQL

To delete a single plan guide

In Object Explorer, connect to an instance of Database Engine.
On the Standard bar, click New Query.

Copy and paste the following example into the query window and click Execute.

--Create a procedure on which to define the plan guide.  
IF OBJECT_ID(N'Sales.GetSalesOrderByCountry', N'P') IS NOT NULL  
    DROP PROCEDURE Sales.GetSalesOrderByCountry;  
GO  
CREATE PROCEDURE Sales.GetSalesOrderByCountry   
    (@Country nvarchar(60))  
AS  
BEGIN  
    SELECT *  
    FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader AS h   
    INNER JOIN Sales.Customer AS c ON h.CustomerID = c.CustomerID  
    INNER JOIN Sales.SalesTerritory AS t ON c.TerritoryID = t.TerritoryID  
    WHERE t.CountryRegionCode = @Country;  
END  
GO  
--Create the plan guide.  
EXEC sp_create_plan_guide N'Guide3',  
    N'SELECT *  
    FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader AS h   
    INNER JOIN Sales.Customer AS c ON h.CustomerID = c.CustomerID  
    INNER JOIN Sales.SalesTerritory AS t ON c.TerritoryID = t.TerritoryID  
    WHERE t.CountryRegionCode = @Country',  
    N'OBJECT',  
    N'Sales.GetSalesOrderByCountry',  
    NULL,  
    N'OPTION (OPTIMIZE FOR (@Country = N''US''))';  
GO  
--Drop the plan guide.  
EXEC sp_control_plan_guide N'DROP', N'Guide3';  
GO

To delete all plan guides in a database

In Object Explorer, connect to an instance of Database Engine.
On the Standard bar, click New Query.