# Capstone Project Partitioned table /dbs **URL:** \ **Category:** Academy Support\ **Tags:** imported\ **Created:** [December 21, 2022, 12:00am UTC](https://forum.kx.com/t/capstone-project-partitioned-table-dbs/13272 "2022-12-21T00:00:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![philsing24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@philsing24](https://forum.kx.com/u/philsing24)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 12:00am UTC](https://forum.kx.com/t/capstone-project-partitioned-table-dbs/13272/1 "2022-12-21T00:00:00Z")
[https://learninghub.kx.com/forums/topic/capstone-project-partitioned-table-dbs](https://learninghub.kx.com/forums/topic/capstone-project-partitioned-table-dbs) Hi, ls /dbs // I get the 4 partitioned values "2020.08.03" "2020.08.04" "2020.08.05" "2020.08.06" "sym" I don't understand what sym represents. when I type cols trade, I don't see the column sym but I can still run the following statement select sym from trade where date=2020.08.05 what's the difference between option\_id and sym? I see only two 2 differences. Sym contains two more rows containing B and S ?! ## sym **B** FB20200720C230 FB20200720C240 .... **S**   ---
**Author:** ![rocuinneagain](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/forum.kx.com/rocuinneagain/32/287_2.png) [@rocuinneagain](https://forum.kx.com/u/rocuinneagain)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 12:00am UTC](https://forum.kx.com/t/capstone-project-partitioned-table-dbs/13272/2 "2022-12-21T00:00:00Z")
The sym file contains enumerated symbols for an symbol column in any table.   The reason you can select it is that if q fails to find a column of that name it will try to use a global variable , which sym will be.   ``` q)`:tab/ set .Q.en[`:.] ([] a:1 2 3;b:`a`b`c) `:tab/ q)tab:get `:tab/ q)tab a b --- 1 a 2 b 3 c q)select sym from tab sym --- a b c q)sym //sym is in memory `a`b`c 2 q)nonsense:`one`two`three q)select nonsense from tab //nonsense is not a column but a global variable nonsense -------- one two three q)delete sym from `. /delete sym from memory `. q)tab / now any sym columns show indexes as they cannot resolve their text a b --- 1 0 2 1 3 2 ```   Review some documentation on enumeration and on disk data: - [https://code.kx.com/q/basics/enumerations/](https://code.kx.com/q/basics/enumerations/") - [https://code.kx.com/q4m3/14\_Introduction\_to\_Kdb+/#1428-working-with-sym-files](https://code.kx.com/q4m3/14_Introduction_to_Kdb+/#1428-working-with-sym-files")