Simple table partion problem...

Hi,

I'm writing a case management application which makes a distinction between finished and unfinished case records.

Unfinished records are identical to finished records except they may be incomplete (ie. only a few fields have relavent information). Finished records will be the only records considered in queries.

I'm now looking for data structure to hold these record types. As the records are identical (ie. they have the same fields), it would be nice if they could be kept in the same table. This would also make future change easier.

Merging the two record types together in a single table would cause a performance hit because another field (isFinished say) would need to be checked (per record per query) to determine the record type.

Instead, I'd prefer to partition the table somehow so that all the finished records existed in one segment and all the unfinshed records lived somewhere else. This way you could guarantee that 100% of the records where finished.

Is there any feature available in Oracle8i that would help me do this? Or am I being over concerned about the influence of isFinished?

Thanks anyway for your help.

Kind Regards,

Max Birkett
Rom ICT Solutions Ltd
Martins Building, Water Street,
Liverpool UK, L2 3SP
Tel (44) 0151 236 9966
Fax (44) 0151 236 9779 Received on Tue Feb 22 2000 - 10:25:22 CST