Truncating first partition created for table partitioned by INTERVAL

Question

Hi,
I have a table created with interval partitions.
When I truncate the partitions, I am unable to truncate the very first partition created on the table. How can I do this?
Thanks.

Answer 1

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When I truncate the partitions, I am unable to truncate the very first partition created on the table
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I'm going to assume you mean DROP and not TRUNCATE and are getting thel following error when you try to DROP the very first partition
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ORA-14758: Last partition in the range section cannot be dropped
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Interval partitioned tables have one or more RANGE partitions and zero or more INTERVAL partitions. The boundary between the LAST range partition and the FIRST interval partition is known as the transition point.
As the error message states you cannot drop the sole remaining RANGE partition that is below the transition point.
You have to move the transition point by merging the last remaining RANGE partition and the first INTERVAL partition. Since dropping a partiton means you no longer want the data you would normally truncate the range partition prior to the merge to minimize the amount of undo and redo that will be generated by the merge.
See this article for an example of how to 'move' the transition point to effectively drop the last remaining RANGE partition.
http://prutser.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/dropping-interval-partitions/