Document DB Location Query - geospatial

Question

My data looks something like this:
{
"id": "a06b42cf-d130-459a-8c89-dab77966747c",
"propertyBag": {
"Fixed": {
"address": {
"locationName": "",
"addressLine1": "1 Microsoft Way",
"addressLine2": null,
"city": "Redmond",
"postalCode": "98052",
"subDivision": null,
"state": "WA",
"country": "USA",
"location": {
"type": "Point",
"coordinates": [
47.640049,
-122.129797
]
}
},
}
}
}
Now when I try to query something like this
SELECT * FROM V v
WHERE ST_DISTANCE(v.propertyBag.Fixed.address.location, {
"type": "Point",
"coordinates": [47.36, -122.19]
}) < 100 * 1000
The results are always empty. I was wondering if someone can please let me know what maybe wrong?

Answer 1

I suspect that you just have the logitude and latitude transposed. Because if I change the document to:
"location": {
"type": "Point",
"coordinates": [-122.129797, 47.640049]
}
And I run this query:
SELECT
ST_DISTANCE(v.propertyBag.Fixed.address.location, {
"type": "Point",
"coordinates": [-122.19, 47.36]
})
FROM v
I get a result, but if I run it the way you show, I get no results.
In GeoJSON, points are specified with [longitude, latitude] to make it match with our normal expectations of x being east-west, and y being north-south. Unfortunately, this is the opposite of the traditional way of showing GEO coordinates.
-122 is not a valid value for latitude. The range for latitude is -90 to +90. Longitude is specified -180 to +180.
If your database is already populated and you don't feel like migrating it, then you could use a user defined function (UDF) to fix it during the query but I would strongly recommend doing the migration over this approach because geo-spacial indexes won't work as you have it now and your queries will be much slower as a result.
Again, I don't recommend this unless a GEO index is not important, but here is a swapXY UDF that will do the swap:
function(point) {
return {
type: "Point",
coordinates: [point.coordinates[1], point.coordinates[0]]
};
}
You use it in a query like this:
SELECT * FROM v
WHERE
ST_DISTANCE(
udf.swapXY(v.propertyBag.Fixed.address.location),
udf.swapXY({
"type": "Point",
"coordinates": [47.36, -122.19]
})
) < 100 * 1000