COLUMNS Partitioning +-------------------------+--------------------------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec) mysql>  CREATE TABLE rcf ( -> a INT, -> b INT, -> c INT ->  ) ->  PARTITION BY RANGE COLUMNS(a,b,c) ( -> PARTITION p0 VALUES LESS THAN (0,25,50), -> PARTITION p1 VALUES LESS THAN (20,20,100), -> PARTITION p2 VALUES LESS THAN (10,30,50), -> PARTITION p3 VALUES LESS THAN (MAXVALUE,MAXVALUE,MAXVALUE) -> ); ERROR 1493 (HY000): VALUES LESS THAN value must be strictly increasing for each partition mysql>  SELECT (0,25,50) < (20,20,100), (20,20,100) < (10,30,50); +-------------------------+--------------------------+ | (0,25,50) < (20,20,100) | (20,20,100) < (10,30,50) | +-------------------------+--------------------------+ | 1 | 0 | +-------------------------+--------------------------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec) CREATE TABLE employees ( id INT NOT NULL, fname VARCHAR(30), lname VARCHAR(30), hired DATE NOT NULL DEFAULT ’1970-01-01’, separated DATE NOT NULL DEFAULT ’9999-12-31’, job_code INT NOT NULL, store_id INT NOT NULL ); CREATE TABLE employees_by_lname ( id INT NOT NULL, fname VARCHAR(30), lname VARCHAR(30), hired DATE NOT NULL DEFAULT ’1970-01-01’, separated DATE NOT NULL DEFAULT ’9999-12-31’, job_code INT NOT NULL, store_id INT NOT NULL ) Using  RANGE COLUMNS  partitioning, you can create a version of this table that stores each row in one of four partitions based on the employee’s last name, like this: It is also possible for  MAXVALUE  to appear for the same column in more than one  VALUES LESS THAN clause when using  RANGE COLUMNS . However, the limiting values for individual columns in successive partition definitions should otherwise be increasing, there should be no more than one partition defined where  MAXVALUE  is used as the upper limit for all column values, and this partition definition should appear last in the list of  PARTITION ... VALUES LESS THAN  clauses. In addition, you cannot use  MAXVALUE as the limiting value for the first column in more than one partition definition. As stated previously, it is also possible with  RANGE COLUMNS  partitioning to use non-integer columns as partitioning columns. (See Section 24.2.3, “COLUMNS Partitioning” , for a complete listing of these.) Consider a table named  employees  (which is not partitioned), created using the following statement: When you get such an error, you can deduce which partition definitions are invalid by making “less than” comparisons between their column lists. In this case, the problem is with the definition of partition  p2 because the tuple used to define it is not less than the tuple used to define partition  p3 , as shown here: If a  CREATE TABLE  statement contains partition definitions that are not in strictly increasing order, it fails with an error, as shown in this example: 4672