Problem exchanging partitions using range partitioning

Question

I have a range-partitioned table. Here's a cut down version....
CREATE TABLE MY_TABLE
   (     VALUE           NUMBER,
     PARTITION_KEY      NUMBER
  PARTITION BY RANGE ("PARTITION_KEY")
(PARTITION "P1"  VALUES LESS THAN (2),
  PARTITION "P2"  VALUES LESS THAN (3),
  PARTITION "P3"  VALUES LESS THAN (4),
  PARTITION "P4"  VALUES LESS THAN (5),
  PARTITION "P5"  VALUES LESS THAN (6),
  PARTITION "P6"  VALUES LESS THAN (7),
  PARTITION "P7"  VALUES LESS THAN (8));For the process I'm working on, I want to be able to:
- create a table as a copy of one of the partitions
- do some processing on that table
- exchange the updated table back into the partitioned table
I can achieve this as follows....
CREATE TABLE MY_TABLE_COPY_P7 AS (SELECT * FROM MY_TABLE WHERE PARTITION_KEY = 7);
... do processing ...
ALTER TABLE MY_TABLE DROP PARTITION P7;
ALTER TABLE MY_TABLE ADD PARTITION P7 VALUES LESS THAN (8);
ALTER TABLE MY_TABLE EXCHANGE PARTITION P7 WITH TABLE MY_TABLE_COPY INCLUDING INDEXES;However, this only works if the partition I'm adding back in is the highest partition.
If I try do take out one of the middle partitions, then add it back I get an error:
SQL] ALTER TABLE MY_TABLE ADD PARTITION P5 VALUES LESS THAN (6);
ALTER TABLE MY_TABLE ADD PARTITION P5 VALUES LESS THAN (6)
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-14074: partition bound must collate higher than that of the last partitionAny ideas on how I can exchange one of the middle partitions with having to first drop the higher ones?
Btw, I have to use range partitioning as we're using spatial, which only supports range partitioning.
Cheers,

Answer 1

Actually, you can do the exchange partition thing with 8i and over. After creating my_table from your script, I did:
SQL> INSERT INTO my_table VALUES (1,7.5);
1 row created.
SQL> INSERT INTO my_table VALUES (2, 7.2);
1 row created.
SQL> INSERT INTO my_table VALUES (3,7.7);
1 row created.
SQL> CREATE TABLE my_tab_tmp AS
  2  SELECT * FROM my_table
  3  WHERE 1=2;
Table created.
SQL> ALTER TABLE my_table EXCHANGE PARTITION P7 WITH TABLE my_tab_tmp;
Table altered.
SQL> SELECT * FROM my_tab_tmp;
     VALUE PARTITION_KEY
         1           7.5
         2           7.2
         3           7.7
SQL> SELECT * FROM my_table;
no rows selected
SQL> UPDATE my_tab_tmp
  2  set value = value * 20;
3 rows updated.
SQL> COMMIT;
Commit complete.
SQL> ALTER TABLE my_table EXCHANGE PARTITION P7 WITH TABLE my_tab_tmp;
Table altered.
SQL> SELECT * FROM my_tab_tmp;
no rows selected
SQL> SELECT * FROM my_table;
     VALUE PARTITION_KEY
        20           7.5
        40           7.2
        60           7.7You will, of course, need to re-build any global indexes on my_table.
When you first create my_tab_tmp, you should also create indexes to match any local indexes on the partitions, then do the exchange partition using the INCLUDING INDEXES clause. You could also skip creating the indexes and then re-create them after exchanging the updated table with the partition.
Note that none of this will work if you are changing values of partition_key so thatthey fall out of the range for the partition.
HTH
John