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What types of columns support PARTITION_BY in BigQuery?

SQLmedium0.4 min read

BigQuery PARTITION BY supports: (1) **DATE/TIMESTAMP**—daily, monthly, yearly; (2) **TIMESTAMP**—hourly; (3) **INTEGER range**—partition by value ranges; (4) **Generated**—e.g., DATE(timestamp_column). **Why these**: Columnar storage enables partition pruning; date/time aligns...

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Frequency
Low
Asked at 1 company
Category
487
questions in SQL
Difficulty Split
130E|271M|86H
in this category
Total Bank
1,863
across 7 categories
Asked at these companies
Aarete
Key Concepts Tested
bigquerypartition

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Expert Answer
86 words

BigQuery PARTITION BY supports: (1) DATE/TIMESTAMP—daily, monthly, yearly; (2) TIMESTAMP—hourly; (3) INTEGER range—partition by value ranges; (4) Generated—e.g., DATE(timestamp_column). Why these: Columnar storage enables partition pruning; date/time aligns with typical analytics filters. Not supported: STRING partitioning—use CLUSTER BY instead for high-cardinality. Scalability trade-offs: DATE partitioning on event tables = excellent prune for time-range queries. INTEGER range for sharding (e.g., user_id ranges) when needed. Cost implications: Partition pruning reduces bytes scanned and thus billing. Example: PARTITION BY DATE(created_at) CLUSTER BY user_id—optimizes both time filters and user lookups.

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