Physical Database Design

128 CHAPTER 7 Range Partitioning

7.2 List Partitioning

7.2.1 Essentials of List Partitioning

Although users normally think of range partitioning as a technique that groups a range

of data together, such as a range of dates or a range of numbers, the same technique can

be used to group point values, such as regions (e.g., New York, Ohio, Florida). A single

value or a set of distinct values can form the “range.” Some vendors refer to this as list

partitioning (e.g., Oracle), because each range of data is defined by a list of one or more

values. Other vendors don’t bother with the distinctions, and simply include this capa-

bility as part of their range ...