[postgis-users] PLPGSQL Function to Calculate Bearing

[Paul & Caroline Lewis]

Basically I can't get my head around the syntax of plpgsql and would appreciate some help with the following efforts.I have a table containing 1000's of wgs84 points. The following SQL will retrieve a set of points within a bounding box on this table:
    SELECT id, ST_X(wgs_geom), ST_Y(wgs_geom), ST_Z(wgs_geom) FROM points_table INNER JOIN (SELECT ST_Transform(ST_GeomFromText('POLYGON((-1.73576102027 51.5059743629,-1.73591122397 51.5061067655,-1.73548743495 51.5062838333,-1.73533186682 51.5061514313,-1.73576102027 51.5059743629))',4326),) AS bgeom) AS t2 ON ST_Within(local_geom, t2.bgeom)
What I need to do is add a bearing/azimuth column to the results that describes the bearing at each point in the returned data set.So the approach I'm trying to implement is to build a plpgsql function that can select the data as per above and calculate the bearing between each set of points in a loop.However my efforts at understanding basic data access and handling within a plpgsql function are failing miserably.
An example of the current version of the function I'm trying to create is as follows:
    CREATE TYPE bearing_type AS (x numeric, y numeric, z numeric, bearing numeric);    DROP FUNCTION IF EXISTS get_bearings_from_points();    CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION get_bearings_from_points()    RETURNS SETOF bearing_type AS    $BODY$    DECLARE        rowdata points_table%rowtype;        returndata bearing_type;    BEGIN        FOR rowdata IN            SELECT nav_id, wgs_geom FROM points_table INNER JOIN (SELECT ST_Transform(ST_GeomFromText('POLYGON((-1.73576102027 53.5059743629,-1.73591122397 53.5061067655,-1.73548743495 53.5062838333,-1.73533186682 53.5061514313,-1.73576102027 53.5059743629))',4326),27700) AS bgeom) AS t2 ON ST_Within(local_geom, t2.bgeom)        LOOP            returndata.x := ST_X(rowdata.wgs_geom);            returndata.y := ST_Y(rowdata.wgs_geom);            returndata.z := ST_Z(rowdata.wgs_geom);            returndata.bearing := ST_Azimuth(<current_point> , <next_point>)        RETURN NEXT returndata;        END LOOP;        RETURN;    END    $BODY$    LANGUAGE plpgsql;
I should just be able to call this function as follows:
    SELECT get_bearings_from_points();
and get the desired result.Basically the problems are understanding how to access the rowdata properly such that I can read the current and next points.
In the above example I've had various problems from how to call the ST_X etc SQL functions and have tried EXECUTE select statements with errors re geometry data types.
Thanks
Paul

Any insights/help would be much appreciated 		 	   		  
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