You are now entering the PC Anatomy portal

In computing, "truncate" means to shorten or cut off data from the end, such as characters from a string or all rows from a table. It is used to shorten data to fit a specific length, optimize storage, or reset a database table. Another common use is in searching, where it finds all variations of a word's stem by adding a wildcard symbol.

Data manipulation

Strings: Shortens a string by removing characters from the end, often used to enforce a maximum length or to remove unnecessary information.

Files: Removes data from the end of a file, which can reduce its size.

Data conversion: Occurs when data is moved into a new record with smaller field lengths, causing information to be cut off without regard for accuracy.

Databases: An SQL command to quickly remove all rows from a table. It is often used to reset the table to an empty state and is more performant than a DELETE statement when all rows are to be removed, as noted on the Pure Storage Blog.