title: Advantages and disadvantages of using delete from vs. copying the data and using drop
body: <p>The MySQL queries</p>
  
  <pre><code> delete from t where not condition;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and</p>
  
  <pre><code> create table s select * from t where condition;
   drop table t;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>are very similar. (Here, <code>condition</code> in the one query is the same as <code>condition</code> in the other.)<br>
  One advantage of the second method is that it allows you inspect <code>s</code> before dropping <code>t</code>, to make sure nothing went wrong with your query. That's a very important consideration, and I don't wish to minimize it, but I'm wondering what <em>other</em> pros and cons exist for either of above queries vis-à-vis the other.</p>