# pt-online-schema-change - alter to

**URL:** <https://forums.percona.com/t/pt-online-schema-change-alter-to/6146>\
**Category:** Percona Toolkit\
**Created:** [January 23, 2018, 7:41am UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/pt-online-schema-change-alter-to/6146 "2018-01-23T07:41:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![syg11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/74df32/32.png) [@syg11](https://forums.percona.com/u/syg11)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 7:41am UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/pt-online-schema-change-alter-to/6146/1 "2018-01-23T07:41:07Z")

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I Tested the pt-online-schema-change on a sample database employees  
with this schema :  
CREATE TABLE `employees` (  
`emp_no` int(11) NOT NULL,  
`birth_date` date NOT NULL,  
`first_name` varchar(14) NOT NULL,  
`last_name` varchar(16) NOT NULL,  
`gender` enum(‘M’,‘F’) NOT NULL,  
`hire_date` date NOT NULL,  
PRIMARY KEY (`emp_no`)  
) ENGINE=InnoDB  
i want to change the table to a partitioned table based on hire\_date and for that i need to change the pk , otherwise i’m getting an error  
Error Code: 1503. A PRIMARY KEY must include all columns in the table’s partitioning function

pt-online-schema-change --alter “PARTITION BY RANGE (to\_days(hire\_date)) (PARTITION p0 VALUES LESS THAN (599616000),PARTITION p1 VALUES LESS THAN (662688000),PARTITION p2 VALUES LESS THAN (725846400),PARTITION p3 VALUES LESS THAN (MAXVALUE) )” D=employees,t=employees --execute

so i need to do a work around before at two stages ( that on big tables can take along time )

first :drop primary key ,ADD PRIMARY KEY (emp\_no ,hire\_date)  
and then do the partition change

my question is there a way in using one of the options , or using plugins  
to create the temp table copy with the new PK , or avoid this error in some other way

Thanks  
Syg

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![carlos.salguero](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forums.percona.com/carlos.salguero/32/20_2.png) [@carlos.salguero](https://forums.percona.com/u/carlos.salguero)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 9:05am UTC](https://forums.percona.com/t/pt-online-schema-change-alter-to/6146/2 "2018-01-23T09:05:09Z")

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Hi,

At this moment there is no way to do it.  
In my TODO list I have plans to test the feasibility of creating a new parameter like --use-template-table so you can specify the new CREATE TABLE statement, including partitions.

Regards