[postgis-devel] geographystyle feature request (external textual representation)

[Sandro Santilli]

On Wed, Sep 09, 2015 at 03:06:12PM -0400, Malek,Christophe [CMC] wrote:
> Hi strk,
> 
> I'm not sure how pg_dump decides which representation to use in its
> dumps. I would assume it uses the "external textual representation" when
> dumping to text (pg_dump -Fp) and uses the "external binary
> representation" when dumping to binary (pg_dump -Fc) but it isn't
> entirely clear from the documentation if this is true.

I believe it is, they are called "canonical text" and "canonical
binary" representations.

> I don't think I understand how GUC lifetime relates to what should be
> output in a dump. Perhaps you could elaborate on the use case?

If you do:

 SET geometry_output_style WKT

You don't want a subsequent pg_dump call to get the WKT
representation.

> You can wait for a patch from me but you may be waiting a very very long
> time ;)

I'm not the one feeling a need for this feature :)

Generally, even WKT is not appropriate for a user, unless the geometry
is really just a point. Text representation may be huge, I'd rather
check with the client if there's a way to tweak how some values are
displayed, if supported (like I think there might be a map widget
plugin in pgadmin?).

--strk;