18.5. Analyzing Spatial Information
After populating spatial columns with values, you are ready to
query and analyze them. MySQL provides a set of functions to
perform various operations on spatial data. These functions can be
grouped into four major categories according to the type of
operation they perform:
Functions that convert geometries between various formats
Functions that provide access to qualitative or quantitative
properties of a geometry
Functions that describe relations between two geometries
Functions that create new geometries from existing ones
Spatial analysis functions can be used in many contexts, such as:
Any interactive SQL program, such as mysql
or MySQL Query Browser
Application programs written in any language that supports a
MySQL client API
