Re: line datatype

Tim Hart wrote:
> Probably the most succinct explanation would be to copy & paste from the
> terminal...
>
> tjhart=> create table a_line( foo line );
> CREATE
> tjhart=> insert into a_line ( foo ) values( '(0,0), (1,1)' );
> ERROR: line not yet implemented
> tjhart=> select version();
> version
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> PostgreSQL 7.2.1 on powerpc-apple-darwin5.3, compiled by GCC 2.95.2
> (1 row)
>
>
> The documentation (datatype-geometric.html) indicates both a 'line' type
> and an 'lseg' type in the summary table at the top of the page. The same
> code above using the type 'lseg' in place of 'line' works just fine.
>
> Why can I create a table with a column of type 'line' if I can't insert
> into it?

Well, that's a very good question. I see you have to compile PostgreSQL
with ENABLE_LINE_TYPE defined in pg_config.h.in and rerun configure.

I see this commit from August 16, 1998:

revision 1.35
date: 1998/08/16 04:06:55; author: thomas; state: Exp; lines: +7 -6
Disable not-ready-to-use support code for the line data type.
Bracket things with #ifdef ENABLE_LINE_TYPE.
The line data type has always been used internally to support other
types, but I/O routines have never been defined for it.

psql \dT clearly shows line and lseg:

line | geometric line '(pt1,pt2)'
lseg | geometric line segment '(pt1,pt2)'

so I think we have both a documentation problem, psql problem, and code
problem. Let's see what Thomas says.

For the short term, I would use lseg because it looks the same.

--
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