[postgis-users] Accessing points externally

[Facundo Ciccioli]

Hi. Here at work we are thinking of using PostGIS to store points
indicating locations (in the future we'll need polygons as well). I
was wondering if there is a way to, once I get the Point object stored
in the database (with something like "SELECT my_point_field FROM
my_table;"), query the data returned to obtain the x and y
coordinates. I read the "Simple features" defined by OpenGIS, and if I
understood correctly, it should NOT be possible what I want to do. The
standard states that the Geometry object's attributes should only be
accessed via SQL (in my case it would go "SELECT st_x(my_point_field),
st_y(my_point_field) FROM my_table;"). But as I said: *if I understood
correctly* :P.

So, is there a way to do this? I guess that what I'm
looking for is a library or something with the functions that access
the internal format of the points as stored in the database, or the
specifications of such format so that we could write a library like
that.

Thanks in advance.
FaQ