B Oracle Locator

Oracle Locator (also referred to as Locator) is a feature of Oracle Database 10g 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 geographic information system (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 the Standard and Enterprise Editions of Oracle Database 10g. Spatial is a priced option available only with Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition. Spatial includes all Locator features as well as other features that are not available with Locator.

In general, Locator 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 spatial indexes on geometry data
Spatial operators (described in Chapter 12) that use the spatial index for performing spatial queries
Some geometry functions and the SDO_AGGR_MBR spatial aggregate function
Integration with Oracle Application Server 10g Wireless

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 B-1.

Table B-1 Spatial Features Supported for Locator

Spatial Feature	Described in
Function-based spatial indexing	Section 9.2
Table partitioning support for spatial indexes (including splitting, merging, and exchanging partitions and their indexes)	Section 4.1.6 and Section 4.1.7
Geodetic data support	Section 6.2 and Section 6.4
SQL statements for creating, altering, and deleting indexes (except deferred updates to spatial indexes, as noted in Table B-2)	Chapter 10
Parallel spatial index builds (PARALLEL keyword with ALTER INDEX REBUILD and CREATE INDEX statements) (new with release 9.2)	Chapter 10
SDO_GEOMETRY object type methods	Chapter 11
Spatial operators	Chapter 12
Implicit coordinate system transformations for operator calls where a window needs to be converted to the coordinate system of the queried layer	Chapter 12
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 13
SDO_AGGR_MBR spatial aggregate function (new to Locator with release 9.2)	Chapter 14
Package (SDO_MIGRATE) to upgrade data from previous Spatial releases to the current release	Chapter 17
Object replication	Oracle Database Advanced Replication
Graphical tool for tuning spatial quadtree indexes (Spatial Index Advisor integrated application in Oracle Enterprise Manager)	Online help for Oracle Enterprise Manager

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

Table B-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 10
SDO_GEOM package functions and procedures, except for those listed in Table B-1	Chapter 13
Spatial aggregate functions, except for any listed in Table B-1	Chapter 14
Linear referencing system (LRS) support	Chapter 7 (concepts and usage) and Chapter 16 (reference)
Coordinate system support for explicit geometry and layer transformations (SDO_CS.TRANSFORM function and SDO_CS.TRANSFORM_LAYER procedure)	Chapter 15
Tuning functions and procedures (SDO_TUNE package)	Chapter 18
Spatial utility functions (SDO_UTIL package)	Chapter 19
Spatial analysis and mining functions and procedures (SDO_SAM package)	Chapter 21
Geocoding support (SDO_GCDR package)	Chapter 5 (concepts and usage) and Chapter 20 (reference)
GeoRaster support	Oracle Spatial GeoRaster
Topology data model	Oracle Spatial Topology and Network Data Models
Network data model	Oracle Spatial Topology and Network Data Models

Although Locator is available on both the Standard and Enterprise Editions of Oracle Database 10g, some Locator features requires database features that are not available or are limited on the Standard Edition. Some of those Locator features and their availability are listed in Table B-3.

Table B-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 Oracle Database Advanced Replication for more information.)
Partitioned spatial indexes	Requires the Partitioning Option with Enterprise Edition. Not supported with Standard Edition.