The next two sections discuss COLUMNS partitioning, which are variants on RANGE and LIST partitioning. COLUMNS partitioning enables the use of multiple columns in partitioning keys. All of these columns are taken into account both for the purpose of placing rows in partitions and for the determination of which partitions are to be checked for matching rows in partition pruning.

In addition, both RANGE COLUMNS partitioning and LIST COLUMNS partitioning support the use of non-integer columns for defining value ranges or list members. The permitted data types are shown in the following list:

The discussions of RANGE COLUMNS and LIST COLUMNS partitioning in the next two sections assume that you are already familiar with partitioning based on ranges and lists as supported in MySQL 5.1 and later; for more information about these, see Section 23.2.1, “RANGE Partitioning”, and Section 23.2.2, “LIST Partitioning”, respectively.