Oracle: how to drop a subpartition of a specific partition

Question

I am using an oracle 11 table with interval partitioning and list subpartitioning like this (simplified):

CREATE TABLE LOG
(
  ID NUMBER(15, 0) NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY
, MSG_TIME DATE NOT NULL
, MSG_NR VARCHAR2(16 BYTE)
) PARTITION BY RANGE (MSG_TIME) INTERVAL (NUMTOYMINTERVAL (1,'MONTH'))
  SUBPARTITION BY LIST (MSG_NR)
    SUBPARTITION TEMPLATE (
     SUBPARTITION login VALUES ('FOO')
   , SUBPARTITION others VALUES (DEFAULT)
   )
   (PARTITION oldvalues VALUES LESS THAN (TO_DATE('01-01-2010','DD-MM-YYYY')));

How do I drop a specific subpartitition for a specific month without knowing the (system generated) name of the subpartition? There is a syntax "alter table ... drop subpartition for (subpartition_key_value , ...)" but I don't see a way to specify the month for which I am deleting the subpartition. The partition administration guide does not give any examples, either. 8-}

Answer 1

As it turns out, the "subpartition for" syntax does indeed work, though that seems to be a secret Oracle does not want to tell you about. :-)

ALTER TABLE TB_LOG_MESSAGE DROP SUBPARTITION FOR 
      (TO_DATE('01.02.2010','DD.MM.YYYY'), 'FOO')

This deletes the subpartition that would contain MSG_TIME 2010/02/01 and MSG_NR FOO. (It is not necessary that there is an actual row with this exact MSG_TIME and MSG_NR. It throws an error if there is no such subpartition, though.)