Re: Partioning a table with a big index, does it help?

[Scott Noyes]

> I believe you'd have to make a primary key in
> order to partition the data (even if it's all 3
> keys), because of how partitioning currently works
> - the partitioned key needs to be part of the
> primary key.

At the moment (5.1.28), partitioning doesn't require any primary key on the table, but if you do have a primary or unique key, it must contain any columns used in the partitioning expression.

This is legal:
CREATE TABLE t1 (id int, d int) PARTITION BY RANGE(d)...

This is not legal:
CREATE TABLE t1 (id int, d int, PRIMARY KEY (id)) PARTITION BY RANGE(d)...

This makes it legal again:
CREATE TABLE t1 (id int, d int, PRIMARY KEY (id, d)) PARTITION BY RANGE(d)...