C
Locator

Oracle9i Locator (also referred to as Locator) is a feature of Oracle interMedia, which is available on the Oracle Standard Edition. Locator provides core features and services available in Oracle Spatial. It provides significant capabilities typically required to support Internet and wireless service-based applications and partner-based GIS solutions. Locator is not designed to be a solution for GIS applications requiring complex spatial data management. If you need capabilities such as linear referencing, spatial functions, or coordinate system transformations, use Oracle Spatial instead of Locator.

Like Spatial, Locator is not designed to be an end-user application, but is a set of spatial capabilities for application developers.

Locator is available with both Oracle9i Standard Edition and Oracle9i Enterprise Edition. Spatial is a priced option available only with Oracle9i Enterprise Edition. Spatial includes all Locator features as well as other features that are not available with Locator.

Locator has been enhanced for Oracle9i. In general, it includes the data types, operators, and indexing capabilities of Oracle Spatial, along with a limited set of the functions and procedures of Spatial. The Locator features include the following:

• An object type (SDO_GEOMETRY) that describes and supports any type of geometry

• A spatial indexing capability that lets you create R-tree or quadtree-based spatial indexes on geometry data

• Spatial operators that use the spatial index for performing spatial queries: SDO_FILTER, SDO_NN, SDO_NN, SDO_NN_DISTANCE, and SDO_WITHIN_DISTANCE

  
  

  Note: For Oracle8i, LOCATOR_WITHIN_DISTANCE was the only Locator operator supported. For Oracle9i, LOCATOR_WITHIN_DISTANCE and SDO_WITHIN_DISTANCE are synonyms (same signatures and behavior), and both are supported.

  
  

• Some geometry functions and the SDO_AGGR_MBR spatial aggregate function

• Ability to work with third-party geocoding tools

• Integration with Oracle9iAS Wireless Edition

For information about spatial concepts, the SDO_GEOMETRY object type, and indexing and loading spatial data, see Chapters 1 through 4 in this guide. For reference and usage information about features supported by Locator, see the chapter or section listed in Table C-1.

Table C-1 Spatial Features Supported for Locator

Spatial Feature	Described in
Ability to integrate with third-party geocoders	Section 1.10
Function-based spatial indexing	Section 7.2
Table partitioning support for spatial indexes (including splitting, merging, and exchanging partitions and their indexes)	Section 4.1.7 and Section 4.1.8
Geodetic data support	Section 5.2 and Section 5.4
SQL statements for creating, altering, and deleting indexes (except deferred updates to spatial indexes, as noted in Table C-2)	Chapter 8
Parallel spatial index builds (PARALLEL keyword with ALTER INDEX REBUILD and CREATE INDEX statements) (new with Release 9.2)	Chapter 8
SDO_GEOMETRY object type methods	Chapter 9
Spatial operators	Chapter 10
Implicit coordinate system transformations for operator calls where a window needs to be converted to the coordinate system of the queried layer	Chapter 10
The following SDO_GEOM package functions and procedures: SDO_GEOM.SDO_DISTANCE SDO_GEOM.VALIDATE_GEOMETRY_WITH_CONTEXT SDO_GEOM.VALIDATE_LAYER_WITH_CONTEXT SDO_GEOM.VALIDATE_GEOMETRY (deprecated) SDO_GEOM.VALIDATE_LAYER (deprecated)	Chapter 11
SDO_AGGR_MBR spatial aggregate function (new to Locator with Release 9.2)	Chapter 12
Function (SDO_CS.VIEWPORT_TRANSFORM) to transform a viewport MBR to work with geodetic coordinate systems, thus allowing client tools to select geodetic data for viewing	Chapter 13
Package (SDO_MIGRATE) to migrate data from release 8.1.5 object-relational format to the release 8.1.6 object-relational format (data using the release 8.1.6 format requires no further migration)	Chapter 15
Object replication	Oracle9i Replication
Graphical tool for tuning spatial quadtree indexes (Spatial Index Advisor integrated application in Oracle Enterprise Manager)	Online help for Oracle Enterprise Manager

Table C-2 lists Spatial features that are not supported for Locator, with the chapter or section in this guide that describes the feature.

Table C-2 Spatial Features Not Supported for Locator

Spatial Feature	Described in
Deferred updates to spatial indexes ('index_status=deferred' with the ALTER INDEX statement)	Chapter 8
SDO_GEOM package functions and procedures, except for those listed in Table C-1	Chapter 11
Spatial aggregate functions, except for any listed in Table C-1	Chapter 12
Linear Referencing System (LRS) support	Chapter 6 (concepts and usage) and Chapter 14 (reference)
Coordinate system support for explicit geometry and layer transformations (SDO_CS.TRANSFORM function and SDO_CS.TRANSFORM_LAYER procedure)	Chapter 13
Tuning functions and procedures (SDO_TUNE package)	Chapter 16
Spatial utility functions (SDO_UTIL package)	Chapter 17

Locator is available on both Oracle9i Standard Edition and Oracle9i Enterprise Edition. Some capabilities requires server features that are not available or are limited on Oracle9i Standard Edition. Some of those features and their availability are listed in Table C-3.

Table C-3 Feature Availability with Standard and Enterprise Editions

Feature	Standard/Enterprise Edition Availability
Parallel spatial index builds	Supported with Enterprise Edition only.
Multimaster replication of SDO_GEOMETRY objects	Supported with Enterprise Edition only. (Single master/materialized view replication for SDO_GEOMETRY objects is supported with both Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition. See Oracle9i Replication for more information.)
Partitioned spatial indexes	Requires the Partitioning Option with Enterprise Edition. Not supported with Standard Edition.