SAP HANA includes a spatial engine and supports spatial data types and methods for processing spatial data. Spatial data is data that describes the position, shape, and orientation of objects in a defined space.
For more check the SAP HANA Spatial Reference
Open the SQL editor of your choice (web or desktop based) connected to your SAP HANA database instance. Screenshots in this and following tutorials are taken using SAP HANA Database Explorer.
Type the following SQL statement.
SELECT NEW ST_POINT(0,0) FROM "DUMMY";
This query selects a point in the 2-dimensional 2D
Euclidean space. A point defines a single location in space. A point always has an X and Y coordinate. In the example above it is (0, 0)
, i.e. X=0
and Y=0
.
Spatial support in SAP HANA database follows the ISO/IEC 13249-3
“SQL multimedia and application packages – Part 3: Spatial” (SQL/MM
) standard. This standard defines:
- how to store, retrieve and process spatial data using SQL,
- how spatial data is to be represented as values,
- which functions are available for converting, comparing, and processing this data in various ways.
A key component of this standard is the use of the spatial data types hierarchy. Within the hierarchy, the prefix ST
is used for all data types (also referred to as classes or types).
The ST_POINT
type is a 0-dimensional geometry which represents a single location. To get an object of the ST_POINT
spatial type you need to call a type’s constructor following the syntax NEW ST_Point(<x>,<y>)
, where x and y are the corresponding longitude and latitude coordinate values of data type DOUBLE.
Execute the query. Congratulations! You’ve just run your very first query using the spatial capabilities of SAP HANA.