13-09-2023

Spatial Query Languages

Reference: Spatial Databases: A Tour, by Shashi Shekhar, Sanjay Chawla

What is a query?

What is a Query ?
A query is a “question” posed to a database
Queries are expressed in a high-level declarative manner
• Algorithms needed to answer the query are not specified in the query
Examples:
Mouse click on a map symbol (e.g. road) may mean
• What is the name of road pointed to by mouse cursor ?
Typing a keyword in a search engine (e.g. google, yahoo) means
• Which documents on web contain given keywords?
SELECT S.name FROM Senator S WHERE S.gender = ‘F’ means
• Which senators are female?

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What is a query language?

What is a query language?

A language to express interesting questions about data
A query language restricts the set of possible queries
Examples:
Natural language, e.g. English, can express almost all queries
Computer programming languages, e.g. Java,
• can express computable queries
• however algorithms to answer the query is needed
Structured Query Language(SQL)
• Can express common data intensive queries
• Not suitable for recursive queries
Graphical interfaces, e.g. web-search, mouse clicks on a map
• can express few different kinds of queries

An Example World Database

Purpose: Use an example database to learn query language SQL

Conceptual Model
3 Entities: Country, City, River
2 Relationships: capital‐of, originates‐in
Attributes listed in Figure 3.1

CONTINENT
NAME
LIFE-EXP

POPULATION POPULATION

CAPITAL
NAME

CAPITAL-OF ORIGINATES
CITY COUNTRY RIVER

GDP LENGTH
NAME

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An Example Database - Logical Model

•3 Relations
Country(Name, Cont, Pop, GDP, Life-Exp, Shape)
City(Name, Country, Pop,Capital, Shape)
River(Name, Origin, Length, Shape)

• Keys
• Primary keys are Country.Name, City.Name, River.Name
• Foreign keys are River.Origin, City.Country

World database data tables

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What is SQL?

SQL - General Information

is a standard query language for relational databases
It support logical data model concepts, such as relations, keys, ...
Supported by major brands, e.g. IBM DB2, Oracle, MS SQL Server, Sybase, ...
3 versions: SQL1 (1986), SQL2 (1992), SQL 3 (1999)
Can express common data intensive queries
SQL 1 and SQL 2 are not suitable for recursive queries
SQL and spatial data management
ESRI Arc/Info included a custom relational DBMS named Info
Other GIS software can interact with DBMS using SQL
• using open database connectivity (ODBC) or other protocols
In fact, many software use SQL to manage data in back-end DBMS
And a vast majority of SQL queries are generated by other software
Although we will be writing SQL queries manually!

Three Components of SQL?

Data Definition Language (DDL)
Creation and modification of relational schema
Schema objects include relations, indexes, etc.
Data Manipulation Language (DML)
Insert, delete, update rows in tables
Query data in tables
Data Control Language (DCL)
Concurrency control, transactions
Administrative tasks, e.g. set up database users, security permissions
Focus for now
A little bit of table creation (DDL) and population (DML)
Primarily Querying (DML)

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Creating Tables in SQL

• Table definition
• “CREATE TABLE” statement
• Specifies table name, attribute names and data types
• Create a table with no rows.
• See an example at the bottom
• Related statements
• ALTER TABLE statement modifies table schema if needed
• DROP TABLE statement removes an empty table

Populating Tables in SQL

• Adding a row to an existing table
• “INSERT INTO” statement
• Specifies table name, attribute names and values
• Example:
INSERT INTO River(Name, Origin, Length) VALUES(‘Mississippi’, ‘USA’, 6000)

• Related statements
• SELECT statement with INTO clause can insert multiple rows in a table
• Bulk load, import commands also add multiple rows
• DELETE statement removes rows
•UPDATE statement can change values within selected rows

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Querying populated Tables in SQL

• SELECT statement
• The commonly used statement to query data in one or more tables
•Returns a relation (table) as result
• Has many clauses
• Can refer to many operators and functions
• Allows nested queries which can be hard to understand
•

SELECT Statement- General Information

• Clauses
•SELECT specifies desired columns
•FROM specifies relevant tables
•WHERE specifies qualifying conditions for rows
•ORDER BY specifies sorting columns for results
•GROUP BY, HAVING specifies aggregation and statistics
• Operators and Functions
•arithmetic operators, e.g. +, -, …
•comparison operators, e.g. =, <, >, BETWEEN, LIKE…
•logical operators, e.g. AND, OR, NOT, EXISTS,
•set operators, e.g. UNION, IN, ALL, ANY, …
•statistical functions, e.g. SUM, COUNT, ...
• many other operators on strings, date, currency, ...

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SELECT Example 1.
• Simplest Query has SELECT and FROM clauses
• Query: List all the cities and the country they belong to.

SELECT Name, Country

FROM CITY

Result 

SELECT Example 2.
• Commonly 3 clauses (SELECT, FROM, WHERE) are used
•Query: List the names of the capital cities in the CITY table.
SELECT *
FROM CITY
WHERE CAPITAL=‘Y ’

Result 

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Query Example…Where clause

Query: List the attributes of countries in the Country relation
where the life-expectancy is less than seventy years.

SELECT Co.Name,Co.Life‐Exp
FROM Country Co
WHERE Co.Life‐Exp <70

Note: use of alias ‘Co’ for Table ‘Country’

Result 

Multi-table Query Examples

Query: List the capital cities and populations of countries
whose GDP exceeds one trillion dollars.
Note:Tables City and Country are joined by matching “City.Country =
Country.Name”. This simulates relational operator “join”

SELECT Ci.Name,Co.Pop
FROM City Ci,Country Co
WHERE Ci.Country =Co.Name
AND Co.GDP >1000.0
AND Ci.Capital=‘Y ’

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Multi-table Query Example

Query: What is the name and population of the capital city in the
country where the St. Lawrence River originates?

SELECT Ci.Name, Ci.Pop

FROM City Ci, Country Co, River R
WHERE R.Origin =Co.Name
AND Co.Name =Ci.Country
AND R.Name =‘St.Lawrence ’
AND Ci.Capital=‘Y ’

Note: Three tables are joined together pair at a time. River.Origin is matched
with Country.Name and City.Country is matched with Country.Name. The
order of join is decided by query optimizer and does not affect the result.

Query Examples…Aggregate Staistics

Query: What is the average population of the noncapital cities listed in the
City table?

SELECT AVG(Ci.Pop)
FROM City Ci
WHERE Ci.Capital=‘N ’

Query: For each continent, find the average GDP.

SELECT Co.Cont,Avg(Co.GDP)AS Continent‐GDP

FROM Country Co
GROUP BY Co.Cont

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Query Example..Having clause, Nested queries

Query: For each country in which at least two rivers originate, find the length
of the smallest river.

SELECT R.Origin, MIN(R.length) AS Min‐length

FROM River
GROUP BY R.Origin
HAVING COUNT(*) > 1

Query: List the countries whose GDP is greater than that of Canada.

SELECT Co.Name
FROM Country Co
WHERE Co.GDP >ANY (SELECT Co1.GDP
FROM Country Co1
WHERE Co1.Name =‘Canada ’)

Extending SQL for Spatial Data

Motivation
SQL has simple atomic data-types, like integer, dates and string
Not convenient for spatial data and queries
• Spatial data (e.g. polygons) is complex
• Spatial operation: topological, euclidean, directional, metric
SQL 3 allows user defined data types and operations
Spatial data types and operations can be added to SQL3
Open Geodata Interchange Standard (OGIS)
Half a dozen spatial data types
Several spatial operations
Supported by major vendors, e.g. ESRI, Intergraph, Oracle, IBM,...

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OGIS Spatial Data Model

Consists of base-class Geometry and four sub-classes:
Point, Curve, Surface and GeometryCollection
Figure 2 lists the spatial data types in OGIS

Operations fall into three categories:

Apply to all geometry types
• SpatialReference, Envelope, Export, IsSimple, Boundary
Predicates for Topological relationships
• Equal, Disjoint, Intersect, Touch, Cross, Within, Contains
Spatial Data Analysis
• Distance, Buffer, Union, Intersection, ConvexHull, SymDiff
Table 3 details spatial operations

Spatial Queries with SQL/OGIS

• SQL/OGIS - General Information
•Both standard are being adopted by many vendors
•The choice of spatial data types and operations is similar
•Syntax differs from vendor to vendor
• Readers may need to alter SQL/OGIS queries given in text to make
them run on specific commercial products
• Using OGIS with SQL
• Spatial data types can be used in DML to type columns
• Spatial operations can be used in DML

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List of Spatial Query Examples

• Simple SQL SELECT_FROM_WHERE examples
•Spatial analysis operations
•Unary operator: Area (Q5)
•Binary operator: Distance (Q3)
•Boolean Topological spatial operations - WHERE clause
•Touch (Q1)
•Cross (Q2)
•Using spatial analysis and topological operations
•Buffer, overlap (Q4)
•Complex SQL examples
• Aggreagate SQL queries
• Nested queries

Using spatial operation in SELECT clause

Query: List the name, population, and area of each country listed in
the Country table.

SELECT C.Name, C.Pop, Area(C.Shape) AS "Area"

FROM Country C

Note: This query uses spatial operation, Area().

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Using spatial operator Distance

Query: List the GDP and the distance of a country’s capital
city to the equator for all countries.

SELECT Co.GDP, Distance(Point(0,Ci.Shape.y),Ci.Shape) AS "Distance"

FROM Country Co,City Ci
WHERE Co.Name = Ci.Country
AND Ci.Capital =‘Y ’

Using Spatial Operation in WHERE clause

Query: Find the names of all countries which are neighbors of the United
States (USA) in the Country table.

SELECT C1.Name AS "Neighbors of USA"

FROM Country C1,Country C2
WHERE Touch(C1.Shape,C2.Shape)=1
AND C2.Name =‘USA ’

Note: Spatial operator Touch() is used in WHERE clause to join Country table
with itself. This query is an example of spatial self join operation.

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Spatial Query with multiple tables

Query: For all the rivers listed in the River table, find the countries through
which they pass.

SELECT R.Name, C.Name

FROM River R, Country C
WHERE Cross(R.Shape,C.Shape)=1

Note: Spatial operation “Cross” is used to join River and Country tables. This
query represents a spatial join operation.

Exercise: Modify above query to report length of river in each country.

Example Spatial Query…Buffer and Overlap

Query: The St. Lawrence River can supply water to cities that are
within 300 km. List the cities that can use water from the St.
Lawrence.

SELECT Ci.Name
FROM City Ci, River R
WHERE Overlap(Ci.Shape, Buffer(R.Shape,300))=1
AND R.Name =‘St.Lawrence ’

Note: This query uses spatial operation of Buffer

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Recall List of Spatial Query Examples

• Simple SQL SELECT_FROM_WHERE examples
•Spatial analysis operations
•Unary operator: Area
•Binary operator: Distance
•Boolean Topological spatial operations - WHERE clause
•Touch
•Cross
•Using spatial analysis and topological operations
•Buffer, overlap
•Complex SQL examples
• Aggregate SQL queries
• Nested queries

Using spatial operation in an aggregate query

Query: List all countries, ordered by number of neighboring countries.

SELECT Co.Name, Count(Co1.Name)

FROM Country Co, Country Co1
WHERE Touch(Co.Shape,Co1.Shape)
GROUP BY Co.Name
ORDER BY Count(Co1.Name)

Notes: This query can be used to differentiate querying capabilities of simple

GIS software (e.g. Arc/View) and a spatial database. It is quite tedious to carry
out this query in GIS.

Earlier version of OGIS did not provide spatial aggregate operation to support
GIS operations like reclassify.

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Using Spatial Operation in Nested Queries

Query: For each river, identify the closest city.

SELECT C1.Name, R1.Name

FROM City C1, River R1
WHERE Distance (C1.Shape,R1.Shape) <= ALL ( SELECT Distance(C2.Shape)
FROM City C2
WHERE C1.Name <> C2.Name
)
Note: Spatial operation Distance used in context of a nested query.
Exercise: It is interesting to note that SQL query expression to find smallest distance from
each river to nearest city is much simpler and does not require nested query. Write a SQL
expression for this query.

Nested Spatial Query

Query: List the countries with only one neighboring country. A country is a
neighbor of another country if their land masses share a boundary. According to
this definition, island countries, like Iceland, have no neighbors.

SELECT Co.Name
FROM Country Co
WHERE Co.Name IN (SELECT Co.Name
FROM Country Co,Country Co1
WHERE Touch(Co.Shape,Co1.Shape)
GROUP BY Co.Name
HAVING Count(*)=1)

Note: It shows a complex nested query with aggregate operations. Such queries can be written into
two expression, namely a view definition, and a query on the view. The inner query becomes a view
and outer query is runon the view. This is illustrated in the next slide.

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Rewriting nested queries using Views

•Views are like tables
•Represent derived data or result of a query
•Can be used to simplify complex nested queries
•Example:
CREATE VIEW Neighbor AS
SELECT Co.Name, Count(Co1.Name)AS num neighbors
FROM Country Co,Country Co1
WHERE Touch(Co.Shape,Co1.Shape)
GROUP BY Co.Name

SELECT Co.Name,num neighbors

FROM Neighbor
WHERE num neighbor = ( SELECT Max(num neighbors)
FROM Neighbor )

Defining Spatial Data Types in SQL3

• SQL3 User defined data type - Overview

• CREATE TYPE statements
• Defines a new data types
• Attributes and methods are defined
• Separate statements for interface and implementation

• Additional effort is needed at physical data model level

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Defining Spatial Data Types in SQL3

• Libraries, Data cartridge/blades
• Third party libraries implementing OGIS are available
• Almost all user use these libraries
• Few users need to define their own data types

• Check the detailed syntax of CREATE TYPE

Summary
Queries to databases are posed in high level declarative manner
SQL is the “lingua-franca” in the commercial database world
Standard SQL operates on relatively simple data types
SQL3/OGIS supports several spatial data types and operations
Additional spatial data types and operations can be defined
CREATE TYPE statement

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