From: David Cottingham <david.cottingham@cl.cam.ac.uk>
To: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
Subject: Indexing a field of type point
Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 15:01:34 +0100 (BST)
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0708091500360.10805@hermes-1.csi.cam.ac.uk> (raw)
Hi,
I realise this isn't strictly an SQL question, but I figured this list might be
better suited than the general one. Please let me know if not.
I have a table containing a field named location, of type point, i.e. a
position in two dimensions. The table has several million records in, and I
need to extract those records whose location value is contained within a
certain bounding box.
To do this efficiently (rather than as a linear scan), I would like to create
an index over this field. However, using GIST under Postgresql 8.2.4 I can't do
this:
test=# create index points_location_index on points using gist (location);
ERROR: data type point has no default operator class for access method "gist"
HINT: You must specify an operator class for the index or define a default
operator class for the data type.
Looking through the available classes, there are none defined for points :-(.
I have seen a post saying that one could use
create index points_location_index on points using gist (location box_ops);
but that comes back with the error that (rightly) box_ops doesn't have
operators for data of type point.
Is anyone aware of a way of creating a suitable index? I am aware of PostGIS,
but would prefer not to have to rework a whole load of code to use the
different geometrical field types it provides.
Thanks for any help!
David.
--
David Cottingham
Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/dnc25/
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To: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
Cc: david.cottingham@cl.cam.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Indexing a field of type point
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0708091500360.10805@hermes-1.csi.cam.ac.uk>
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