create_hypertable() (old interface)

Create a hypertable

Deprecated

This page describes the API supported prior to v2.13. Best practice is to use the new create_hypertable interface.

Creates a from a table (replacing the latter), partitioned on time and with the option to partition on one or more other columns. The table cannot be an already partitioned table (declarative partitioning or inheritance). In case of a non-empty table, it is possible to migrate the data during creation using the migrate_data option, although this might take a long time and has certain limitations when the table contains foreign key constraints (see below).

After creation, all actions, such as ALTER TABLE, SELECT, etc., still work on the resulting .

For more information about using s, including chunk size partitioning, see the hypertable documentation.

Samples

Convert table conditions to with just time partitioning on column time:

SELECT create_hypertable('conditions', 'time');

Convert table conditions to , setting chunk_time_interval to 24 hours.

SELECT create_hypertable('conditions', 'time', chunk_time_interval => 86400000000);
SELECT create_hypertable('conditions', 'time', chunk_time_interval => INTERVAL '1 day');

Convert table conditions to . Do not raise a warning if conditions is already a :

SELECT create_hypertable('conditions', 'time', if_not_exists => TRUE);

Time partition table measurements on a composite column type report using a time partitioning function. Requires an immutable function that can convert the column value into a supported column value:

CREATE TYPE report AS (reported timestamp with time zone, contents jsonb);

CREATE FUNCTION report_reported(report)
  RETURNS timestamptz
  LANGUAGE SQL
  IMMUTABLE AS
  'SELECT $1.reported';

SELECT create_hypertable('measurements', 'report', time_partitioning_func => 'report_reported');

Time partition table events, on a column type jsonb (event), which has a top level key (started) containing an ISO 8601 formatted timestamp:

CREATE FUNCTION event_started(jsonb)
  RETURNS timestamptz
  LANGUAGE SQL
  IMMUTABLE AS
  $func$SELECT ($1->>'started')::timestamptz$func$;

SELECT create_hypertable('events', 'event', time_partitioning_func => 'event_started');

Arguments

Name	Type	Default	Required	Description
relation	REGCLASS	-	✔	Identifier of table to convert to .
time_column_name	REGCLASS	-	✔	Name of the column containing time values as well as the primary column to partition by.
partitioning_column	REGCLASS	-	✖	Name of an additional column to partition by. If provided, the number_partitions argument must also be provided.
number_partitions	INTEGER	-	✖	Number of hash partitions to use for partitioning_column. Must be > 0.
chunk_time_interval	INTERVAL	7 days	✖	Event time that each chunk covers. Must be > 0. Default is 7 days.
create_default_indexes	BOOLEAN	true	✖	Whether to create default indexes on time/partitioning columns. Default is TRUE.
if_not_exists	BOOLEAN	false	✖	Whether to print warning if table already converted to or raise exception. Default is FALSE.
partitioning_func	REGCLASS	-	✖	The function to use for calculating a value’s partition.
associated_schema_name	REGCLASS	_timescaledb_internal	✖	Name of the schema for internal tables. Default is _timescaledb_internal.
associated_table_prefix	TEXT	_hyper	✖	Prefix for internal chunk names. Default is _hyper.
migrate_data	BOOLEAN	false	✖	Set to TRUE to migrate any existing data from the relation table to chunks in the new . A non-empty table generates an error without this option. Large tables may take significant time to migrate. Defaults to FALSE.
time_partitioning_func	REGCLASS	-	✖	Function to convert incompatible primary time column values to compatible ones. The function must be IMMUTABLE.
replication_factor	INTEGER	-	✖	Replication factor to use with distributed . If not provided, value is determined by the timescaledb.hypertable_replication_factor_default GUC.
data_nodes	ARRAY	-	✖	This is the set of data nodes that are used for this table if it is distributed. This has no impact on non-distributed s. If no data nodes are specified, a distributed uses all data nodes known by this instance.
distributed	BOOLEAN	NULL	✖	Set to TRUE to create distributed . If not provided, value is determined by the timescaledb.hypertable_distributed_default GUC. When creating a distributed , consider using create_distributed_hypertable in place of create_hypertable. Default is NULL.

Returns

Column	Type	Description
hypertable_id	INTEGER	ID of the in .
schema_name	TEXT	Schema name of the table converted to .
table_name	TEXT	Table name of the table converted to .
created	BOOLEAN	TRUE if the was created, FALSE when if_not_exists is true and no was created.

If you use SELECT * FROM create_hypertable(...) you get the return value formatted as a table with column headings.

The use of the migrate_data argument to convert a non-empty table can lock the table for a significant amount of time, depending on how much data is in the table. It can also run into deadlock if foreign key constraints exist to other tables.

When converting a normal SQL table to a , pay attention to how you handle constraints. A can contain foreign keys to normal SQL table columns, but the reverse is not allowed. UNIQUE and PRIMARY constraints must include the partitioning key.

The deadlock is likely to happen when concurrent transactions simultaneously try to insert data into tables that are referenced in the foreign key constraints and into the converting table itself. The deadlock can be prevented by manually obtaining SHARE ROW EXCLUSIVE lock on the referenced tables before calling create_hypertable in the same transaction, see documentation for the syntax.

Units

The time column supports the following data types:

Description	Types
Timestamp	TIMESTAMP, TIMESTAMPTZ
Date	DATE
Integer	SMALLINT, INT, BIGINT

The type flexibility of the ‘time’ column allows the use of non-time-based values as the primary chunk partitioning column, as long as those values can increment.

For incompatible data types (for example, jsonb) you can specify a function to the time_partitioning_func argument which can extract a compatible data type.

The units of chunk_time_interval should be set as follows:

• For time columns having timestamp or DATE types, the chunk_time_interval should be specified either as an interval type or an integral value in microseconds.
• For integer types, the chunk_time_interval must be set explicitly, as the database does not otherwise understand the semantics of what each integer value represents (a second, millisecond, nanosecond, etc.). So if your time column is the number of milliseconds since the UNIX epoch, and you wish to have each chunk cover 1 day, you should specify chunk_time_interval => 86400000.

In case of hash partitioning (in other words, if number_partitions is greater than zero), it is possible to optionally specify a custom partitioning function. If no custom partitioning function is specified, the default partitioning function is used. The default partitioning function calls ‘s internal hash function for the given type, if one exists. Thus, a custom partitioning function can be used for value types that do not have a native hash function. A partitioning function should take a single anyelement type argument and return a positive integer hash value. Note that this hash value is not a partition ID, but rather the inserted value’s position in the dimension’s key space, which is then divided across the partitions.

The time column in create_hypertable must be defined as NOT NULL. If this is not already specified on table creation, create_hypertable automatically adds this constraint on the table when it is executed.