In Oracle 10g I'm creating a range partitioned table. Each partition will be a year. My question is what do you use for the name of the MaxValue partition? I was planning to call my partitions P2001, P2002, P2003 ... P2009. Suggestions welcome, I've considered P9999, PCurrent, PThisYear, PFuture, PEmpty, PMaxValue, and PCreateAnotherPartition.
I like the P9999 idea, as it keeps the same length. Also, you get the same order whether you sort by partition_name or partition_id.
Some people prefer to add a prefix that indicates the table name as well (length is an issue). Say your table is called TABLE1, then your partitions could be called TABLE1_2008, TABLE1_2009, TABLE1_9999, etc, as it makes the names unique for the whole schema.
But it's only a matter of preference. In Oracle 11g you can have interval partitions, and then it's the database choosing the name of the partitions, and those won't be pretty.