How to drop all tables in a MySQL database without dropping the database?

I need to drop all the tables in a database without knowing their names beforehand. The typical procedure is to drop and then recreate the database but this is not an option. What is the best way to do it?

There is a simpler bash one-liner using mysqldump (from Thingy Ma Jig Blog).

mysqldump -u[USERNAME] -p[PASSWORD] --add-drop-table --no-data [DATABASE] | grep ^DROP | mysql -u[USERNAME] -p[PASSWORD] [DATABASE]

If you're getting this error:

ERROR 1217 (23000) at line 1: Cannot delete or update a parent row: 
    a foreign key constraint fails

Try the following:

(echo 'SET foreign_key_checks = 0;'; 
 (mysqldump -u[USERNAME] -p[PASSWORD] --add-drop-table --no-data [DATABASE] | 
     grep ^DROP); 
 echo 'SET foreign_key_checks = 1;') | \
    mysql -u[USERNAME] -p[PASSWORD] -b [DATABASE]

Now it ignores the constraints.

You should use the information_schema tables to fetch the metadata about the database, and then drop the tables listed there.