Geographical data Type

ksudhir466 · Post by **ksudhir466** » Mon Dec 20, 2010 11:19 pm

Hi,
I have columns with valuse as longitude and latitude.
we need to handle this in data stage as geographical datatype and not as varchar or char.
Could you pleae help on this

Thanks
Sudhir

chulett · Post by **chulett** » Mon Dec 20, 2010 11:41 pm

What do you mean here by "geographical datatype"? Something specific to a software package? The geocodes (lat/long) I've dealt with in the past are simple decimal values with a scale of 5 or 6, from what I recall.

ray.wurlod · Post by **ray.wurlod** » Mon Dec 20, 2010 11:43 pm

I usually encounter them as Decimal(7,3) or subrecord containing degrees, minutes, seconds and direction. In N years of working with databases I have not encountered a data type called Geographical (though QualityStage does have a GeoMatch matching technique).

chulett · Post by **chulett** » Tue Dec 21, 2010 12:18 am

What I've encountered working with the likes of Google and Yahoo is apparently known as "Signed Degrees format" as noted here.