Re: Box type equality

Stanislav Kelvich <s(dot)kelvich(at)postgrespro(dot)ru> writes:
> I've faced an issue with Box type comparison that exists almost for a five years.

Try twenty-five years. The code's been like that since Berkeley.

> That can be fixed by b-tree equality for boxes, but we need some
> decisions there.

The problem with inventing a btree opclass for boxes is much more
fundamental than fuzzy comparisons, unfortunately. Btree requires a
linear sort order, and there's no plausible linear ordering of boxes,
unless you compare areas which won't give the equality semantics you want.

We could perhaps invent an exact-equality operator and construct just
a hash opclass for it, no btree.

In any case I think it would be a mistake to consider only boxes; all
the built-in geometric types have related issues.

regards, tom lane