Question

Hi I’m using ms sql 2005 to store some latlng data.
It is currently being stored in a nvarchar column in the following form – “35.6949965,139.7555035”
My questions are.
Is this the best way to store this kind of data?
If I do store the latlng in this way is it going to come and bite me later, or will it mean just that I will have to do any processing outside of the database?

Any pointers appreciated,

Answer 1

It’s almost certainly not the best way to store it. If you use a pair of floating-point columns – latitude and longitude – then you can perform some functions within the database itself. As an example, here’s how to calculate the distance between two points:

http://www.zipcodeworld.com/samples/distance.mssql.html

Or, as a trivial example,

SELECT * FROM table WHERE latitide<40;

would find everywhere north of New York.