2008/9/21 Volkan YAZICI <yazicivo@xxxxxxxxxx>: > On Sun, 21 Sep 2008, "Anton Belyaev" <anton.belyaev@xxxxxxxxx> writes: >> SELECT * FROM towns where alt1 <= alt <= alt2 AND long1 <= long <= >> long2 ORDER BY population LIMIT 10; > > You're absolutely on the wrong path. Don't try to implement a logic, > that has been implemented by PostgreSQL in the most possibly efficient > way in its bounds. See geographic data types[1] (e.g. box) and > geographic functions[2] (e.g. @> a.k.a contains). > > > Regards. > > [1] http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/interactive/datatype-geometric.html > [2] http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/interactive/functions-geometry.html > Volkan, Thanks you for your reply. Geometry types and functions use R-tree indexes anyways. I can rephrase the query using geometry language of Postgres: SELECT * FROM towns WHERE towns.coordinates <@ box(alt1, long1, alt2, long2) ORDER BY population LIMIT 10; And the questions about population remain the same: How to avoid examination of all the towns in the rectangle knowing that we need only 10 biggest? Does population worth including into a (3D) point (In order to create a 3D R-tree)? Does Postgres perform ODRER/LIMIT efficiently in this case? Thanks. Anton.
