Constructor functions for converting to and from data exchange formats

The supported data exchange formats are:

• Well-known text (WKT) representation
• Well-known binary (WKB) representation
• ESRI shape representation
• Geography Markup Language (GML) representation

The functions for creating geometries from these formats are known as constructor functions. Constructor functions have the same name as the geometry data type of the column into which the data will be inserted. These functions operate consistently on each of the input data exchange formats. This section provides:

• The SQL for calling functions that operate on data exchange formats, and the type of geometry returned by these functions
• The SQL for calling a function that creates points from X and Y coordinates, and the type of geometry returned by this function
• Examples of code and result sets