12.18.7. MySQL Conformance and Compatibility

Additional Metadata Views

OpenGIS specifications propose several additional metadata views. For example, a system view named GEOMETRY_COLUMNS contains a description of geometry columns, one row for each geometry column in the database.

The OpenGIS function Length() on LineString and MultiLineString currently should be called in MySQL as GLength()

The problem is that there is an existing SQL function Length() that calculates the length of string values, and sometimes it is not possible to distinguish whether the function is called in a textual or spatial context. We need either to solve this somehow, or decide on another function name.