ADQL geometric functi"> SQLServer & ADQL geometric functions

Page for discussions about supporting the ADQL geometric functions in SQLServer.

Current deployments

ROE

The main science archives at ROE are hosted on a set of SQLServer 2012 databases. They have HTM-based regional queries enabled using SQL Server's built-in geometric functions, but these are not connected to the TAP services.

Our current TAP services do not support the ADQL geometric functions.

MAST

Many MAST holdings, including the Registry and a growing set of multimission data in ObsCore, are hosted on a set of SQLServer databases.

Nearly completed TAP services are not currently published. Release of ObsTAP is held up on adding geometric functions for parsing ADQL to native SQL Server. to SQL Server-flavoured queries. For both RegTAP and ObsTAP, some canned TOPCAT queries don't work due to lack of NATURAL JOIN support in SQL Server. Services will be shipped preliminarily without that support, with the intention of adding it later.

Brian McLean has written a series of database procedures mapping more pgSphere-like regional queries to the SQL Server's built-in geometric functions. Testing suggests similar performance to the old HTM-based system, and will be used in the ADQL parsing.