[postgis-users] Another few questions

[Paul Tomblin]

Mark Cave-Ayland wrote:
> On Sunday 30 March 2008 19:46:31 Paul Tomblin wrote:
>> to use some of them, you actually have to leave off the "ST_" part.  This
>> function is defined as requiring a box3d, but nothing I can find in the
>> docs actually comes out and says that if you have a method that takes a
>> box3d, you can call it with a geometry and it will use the bounding box
>> (ok, it does come out and say that for the && operator, but it doesn't say
>> it's true in general).
>>
>> I'm really trying to read the manual before asking dumb questions, but the
>> manual is horrible.
> 
> Yeah, I can see how using an older version with the live documentation can be 
> really confusing for a beginner. Maybe we need to keep multiple versions of 
> the documentation online with each release, so there is something like:
> 
> 	http://postgis.refractions.net/docs/1.3/
> 	http://postgis.refractions.net/docs/1.2/
> 
> This assumes no API changes between point versions though.
> 

Leaving aside API changes, a simple mention that when you have a function that 
is defined to take a box3d, it's legitimate to call it with a geometry and it 
will use the bounding box would be a nice start.  Basically, the manual 
appears to be riddled with unwritten assumptions that you can't see because 
you know them all already, but which are daunting to a newcomer.


-- 
Paul Tomblin <ptomblin at xcski.com> http://blog.xcski.com/
chown -R us /yourbase
     - Simon Slavin