MySQLPoint

Provides basic ActiveRecord support for MySQL point fields. This becomes useful in MySQL 5.7.6, which adds ST_DISTANCE_SPHERE for practical distance-between-points-on-Earth calculations.

Features

Included:

• migrations
• schema dumping and loading
• reading and writing from database
• a Ruby struct
• ActiveModel validator for Earth coordinates

Future scope:

• ARel helper to find records near a static location

Never in scope:

• full geometry field support in MySQL

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'mysql_point'

Usage

Migrating

class MyMigration < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def change
    create_table :public_water_fountains do |t|
      t.point 'location', null: false
      t.timestamps
    end
  end
end

Validating

class PublicWaterFountain
  validates :location, coordinate: true
end

Setting

# scalar values can be passed in WKT format, with longitude in first position
PublicWaterFountain.new(location: 'POINT(-73.9635288 40.7812022)')

# structured values can be passed as a MySQLPoint::Coordinate
PublicWaterFountain.new(
  location: MySQLPoint::Coordinate(longitude: -73.9635288, latitude: 40.7812022)
)

Querying

-- all public water fountains within 5 miles of Central Park
SELECT *
FROM public_water_fountains
WHERE ST_DISTANCE_SPHERE(location, POINT(-73.9675438, 40.7828687)) * 0.000621371 < 5

Development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake test to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/empaticoorg/mysql_point. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the Contributor Covenant code of conduct.

Code of Conduct

Everyone interacting in the MySQLPoint project’s codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms and mailing lists is expected to follow the code of conduct.