[postgis-users] which geometry type ?

Nicolas Ribot nicolas.ribot at gmail.com
Wed Aug 18 05:54:19 PDT 2010


On 18 August 2010 14:39, Armand Turpel <aturpel at mnhn.lu> wrote:
> Hi,
> Which is the best strategy for storing geometries items if the type of
> geometries could be a point, line or polygon. Geometrycollection ? or
> storing items in different tables/columns with specific geometry type? What
> about storing everything as polygons? A point could be stored as a very
> small polygon.
>
>

Hi
I would say it really depends on what you are doing with these objects.
If you store all objects in the same column, with a generic 'geometry'
type and no check constraint on the column, then you won't be able to
use most of the postgis functions on these objects, as many functions
deal only with a geometry subtype (polygons, multi*, point, etc).
Same apply if you want to render this column, for instance with
mapserver, as you won't be able to tell MS how to render this
composite objects.

One column per geo type seems the be the "cleanest" way to store
objects to be able to manipulate them fully.

Nicolas



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