[postgis-users] Issue with the geometry field in postgresql tables

[Vincent J. Troisi]

We want to conduct searches on a table containing a variety of
geometry types. The search returns records that satisfy the
tests for intersection, containment, and overlap. Our DBA
has discovered an issue with using the geometry field; the
field can contain only one geometry definition.

Does anyone have an approach that we can use to query a
spatial field (e.g., geometry) in a table using the standard
functions available in postgis? See below...


>
> Here is the write up for the issue I found out with postGIS 
> yesterday.  The way postgresql handles the geometry column is that you 
> have specify a spatial reference system ID everytime a geometry column 
> is created.  It then uses the spatial reference ID to enforce the rule 
> that every geometry entered into that column matches the spatial 
> reference ID or it will give you an error.  It also allows postGIS to 
> perform convertion on the projections.  This causes the problem 
> because we need to be able to assign different spatial reference ID to 
> different datasets.  With a fixed spatial reference ID assigned to the 
> column, it prevents us from using that the column for datasets that 
> have different spatial reference IDs.