Mysql2Rgeo ActiveRecord Adapter

The activerecord-mysql2rgeo-adapter provides access to features of the MySQL geospatial database from ActiveRecord. It uses the RGeo library to represent spatial data in Ruby.

Overview

The adapter provides three basic capabilities:

First, it provides spatial migrations. It extends the ActiveRecord migration syntax to support creating spatially-typed columns and spatial indexes. You can control the various PostGIS-provided attributes such as srid, dimension, and geographic vs geometric math.

Second, it recognizes spatial types and casts them properly to RGeo geometry objects. The adapter can configure these objects automatically based on the srid and dimension in the database table, or you can tell it to convert the data to a different form. You can also set attribute data using WKT format.

Third, it lets you include simple spatial data in queries. WKT format data and RGeo objects can be embedded in where clauses.

Install

The adapter requires Mysql 5.6+.

Gemfile:

gem 'activerecord-mysql2rgeo-adapter'

Gemfile for JRuby:

gem 'activerecord-mysql2rgeo-adapter'
gem 'jdbc-mysql', platform: :jruby
gem 'activerecord-jdbc-adapter', platform: :jruby
gem 'ffi-geos'

JRuby support for Rails 4.0 and 4.1 was added in version 2.2.0

Version 7.x supports ActiveRecord 7.0+

Requirements:

ActiveRecord 7.0+
Ruby 2.7+ (no JRuby support yet)
PostGIS 2.0+

Version 6.x supports ActiveRecord 6.0+

Requirements:

ActiveRecord 6.0+
Ruby 2.5+ (no JRuby support yet)
PostGIS 2.0+

Version 5.x supports ActiveRecord 5.1+

Requirements:

ActiveRecord 5.1+
Ruby 2.2.2+ (no JRuby support yet)
PostGIS 2.0+

Version 4.x supports ActiveRecord 5.0+

Requirements:

ActiveRecord 5.0+
Ruby 2.2.2+, JRuby
PostGIS 2.0+

database.yml

You must modify your config/database.yml file to use the mysql2rgeo adapter. At minimum, you will need to change the adapter field from mysql2 to mysql2rgeo. Recommended configuration:

development:
  username:           your_username
  adapter:            mysql2rgeo
  host:               localhost

Here are some other options that are supported:

development:
  adapter: mysql2rgeo
  encoding: unicode
  pool: 5
  database: my_app_development    # your database name
  username: my_app_user           # the username your app will use to connect
  password: my_app_password       # the user's password

`rgeo` dependency

This adapter uses the rgeo gem, which has additional dependencies. Please see the README documentation for rgeo for more information: https://github.com/rgeo/rgeo

Creating a Spatial Rails App

This section covers starting a new Rails application from scratch. If you need to add geospatial capabilities to an existing Rails application (i.e. you need to convert a non-spatial database to a spatial database), see the section on "Upgrading a Database With Spatial Features" below.

To create a new Rails application using activerecord-mysql2rgeo-adapter, start by using the mysql2 adapter.

rails new my_app --database=mysql

Add the adapter gem to the Gemfile:

gem 'activerecord-mysql2rgeo-adapter'

Once you have set up your database config, run:

rake db:create

to create your development database. The adapter will add the PostGIS extension to your database.

Once you have installed the adapter, edit your config/database.yml as described above.

Upgrading an Existing Database

If you have an existing Rails app that uses Mysql, and you want to add geospatial features, follow these steps.

First, add the activerecord-mysql2rgeo-adapter gem to the Gemfile, and update your bundle by running bundle install.

Next, modify your config/database.yml file to invoke the mysql2rgeo adapter, as described above.

Creating Spatial Tables

To store spatial data, you must create a column with a spatial type. PostGIS provides a variety of spatial types, including point, linestring, polygon, and different kinds of collections. These types are defined in a standard produced by the Open Geospatial Consortium. You can specify options indicating the coordinate system and number of coordinates for the values you are storing.

The activerecord-mysql2rgeo-adapter extends ActiveRecord's migration syntax to support these spatial types. The following example creates five spatial columns in a table:

create_table :my_spatial_table do |t|
  t.column :shape1, :geometry
  t.geometry :shape2
  t.line_string :path
  t.point :lonlat
  t.point :lonlatheight
end

The first column, "shape1", is created with type "geometry". This is a general "base class" for spatial types; the column declares that it can contain values of any spatial type.

The second column, "shape2", uses a shorthand syntax for the same type as the shape1 column. You can create a column either by invoking column or invoking the name of the type directly.

The third column, "path", has a specific geometric type, line_string. It also specifies an SRID (spatial reference ID) that indicates which coordinate system it expects the data to be in. The column now has a "constraint" on it; it will accept only LineString data, and only data whose SRID is 3857.

The fourth column, "lonlat", has the point type, and accepts only Point data. Furthermore, it declares the column as "geographic", which means it accepts longitude/latitude data, and performs calculations such as distances using a spheroidal domain.

The fifth column, "lonlatheight", is a geographic (longitude/latitude) point that also includes a third "z" coordinate that can be used to store height information.

The following are the data types understood by PostGIS and exposed by activerecord-mysql2rgeo-adapter:

:geometry -- Any geometric type
:point -- Point data
:line_string -- LineString data
:polygon -- Polygon data
:geometry_collection -- Any collection type
:multi_point -- A collection of Points
:multi_line_string -- A collection of LineStrings
:multi_polygon -- A collection of Polygons

To create a spatial index, add type: :spatial to your index:

add_index :my_table, :lonlat, type: :spatial

# or

change_table :my_table do |t|
  t.index :lonlat, type: :spatial
end

Point and Polygon Types with ActiveRecord 4.2+

Prior to version 3, the point and polygon types were supported.

Configuring ActiveRecord

ActiveRecord's usefulness stems from the way it automatically configures classes based on the database structure and schema. If a column in the database has an integer type, ActiveRecord automatically casts the data to a Ruby Integer. In the same way, the activerecord-mysql2rgeo-adapter automatically casts spatial data to a corresponding RGeo data type.

RGeo offers more flexibility in its type system than can be interpreted solely from analyzing the database column. For example, you can configure RGeo objects to exhibit certain behaviors related to their serialization, validation, coordinate system, or computation. These settings are embodied in the RGeo factory associated with the object.

You can configure the adapter to use a particular factory (i.e. a particular combination of settings) for data associated with each type in the database.

Here's an example using a Geos default factory:

RGeo::ActiveRecord::SpatialFactoryStore.instance.tap do |config|
  # By default, use the GEOS implementation for spatial columns.
  config.default = RGeo::Geos.factory_generator

  # But use a geographic implementation for point columns.
  config.register(RGeo::Geographic.spherical_factory(srid: 4326), geo_type: "point")
end

The default spatial factory for geographic columns is RGeo::Geographic.spherical_factory. The default spatial factory for cartesian columns is RGeo::Cartesian.preferred_factory. You do not need to configure the SpatialFactoryStore if these defaults are ok.

For more explanation of SpatialFactoryStore, see the rgeo-activerecord README

Working With Spatial Data

Of course, you're using this adapter because you want to work with geospatial data in your ActiveRecord models. Once you've installed the adapter, set up your database, and run your migrations, you can interact directly with spatial data in your models as RGeo objects.

RGeo is a Ruby implementation of the industry standard OGC Simple Features specification. It's a set of data types that can represent a variety of geospatial objects such as points, lines, polygons, and collections. It also provides the standard set of spatial analysis operations such as computing intersections or bounding boxes, calculating length or area, and so forth. We recommend browsing the RGeo documentation for a clearer understanding of its capabilities. For now, just note that the data values you will be working with are all RGeo geometry objects.

Reading and Writing Spatial Columns

When you access a spatial attribute on your ActiveRecord model, it is given to you as an RGeo geometry object (or nil, for attributes that allow null values). You can then call the RGeo api on the object. For example, consider the MySpatialTable class we worked with above:

record = MySpatialTable.find(1)
p = record.lonlat                  # Returns an RGeo::Feature::Point
puts p.x                           # displays the x coordinate
puts p.geometry_type.type_name     # displays "Point"

The RGeo factory for the value is determined by how you configured the ActiveRecord class, as described above. In this case, we explicitly set a spherical factory for the :lonlat column:

factory = p.factory                # returns a spherical factory

You can set a spatial attribute by providing an RGeo geometry object, or by providing the WKT string representation of the geometry. If a string is provided, the activerecord-mysql2rgeo-adapter will attempt to parse it as WKT and set the value accordingly.

record.lonlat = 'POINT(-122 47)'  # sets the value to the given point

If the WKT parsing fails, the value currently will be silently set to nil. In the future, however, this will raise an exception.

record.lonlat = 'POINT(x)'         # sets the value to nil

If you set the value to an RGeo object, the factory needs to match the factory for the attribute. If the factories do not match, activerecord-mysql2rgeo-adapter will attempt to cast the value to the correct factory.

p2 = factory.point(-122, 47)       # p2 is a point in a spherical factory
record.lonlat = p2                 # sets the value to the given point
record.shape1 = p2                 # shape1 uses a flat geos factory, so it
                                   # will cast p2 into that coordinate system
                                   # before setting the value
record.save

Spatial Queries

You can create simple queries based on representational equality in the same way you would on a scalar column:

record2 = MySpatialTable.where(:lonlat => factory.point(-122, 47)).first

You can also use WKT:

record3 = MySpatialTable.where(:lonlat => 'POINT(-122 47)').first

Note that these queries use representational equality, meaning they return records where the lonlat value matches the given value exactly. A 0.00001 degree difference would not match, nor would a different representation of the same geometry (like a multipoint with a single element). Equality queries aren't generally all that useful in real world applications. Typically, if you want to perform a spatial query, you'll look for, say, all the points within a given area. For those queries, you'll need to use the standard spatial SQL functions provided by PostGIS.