Partition getPartition(List<String> partVals) throws MetaException {
    if (partVals == null) {
      throw new MetaException("Partition values cannot be null");
    }
    return pTree.getPartition(partVals);
  }
This stores partition information for a temp table.
ql/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hive/ql/metadata/TempTable.java