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Introduction
Points
11. ST_GeomFromText
Linestrings
Polygons
Summary

## Instruction

We've already learned how to change the internal PostGIS format to WKT (via the ST_AsText function). How about doing it the other way round?

The ST_GeomFromText function allows us to change the coordinates we provided to the internal PostGIS format. It may help us to check whether something in our data corresponds to the provided longitude and latitude. Let's suppose that we have latitude = 37.468980000000002 and longitude = -122.432969999999997. It's quite easy to make a point with this information: simply type POINT and pass in the longitude and latitude as the arguments, in that order, like so:

 POINT(-122.432969999999997 37.468980000000002)

Note that we inverted the longitude and latitude. As we mentioned previously, the longitude comes first in PostGIS!

Alright, now that we've constructed our point, we can check whether something corresponds to these coordinates in the sf_atms table. Let's take a look at how this can be done:

SELECT
coordinates
FROM sf_atms
WHERE coordinates = ST_GeomFromText(
'POINT(-122.432969999999997 37.468980000000002)',
4326)


There are two very important things worth noting. First, we had to put our POINT(-122.432969999999997 37.468980000000002) into quotation marks. This is because ST_GeomFromText expects a string as its first argument. The second argument is an SRID. In this case the SRID equals 4326. Don't worry about what SRIDs are. We'll get to it in a while.

## Exercise

You have two coordinates:

• latitude: 37.8018500234353283,
• longitude: -122.44882987574394

Create a point out of them and check whether there is any attraction in the sf_sights table that matches this exact point. Display the name of the place and its coordinates in PostGIS format.

### Stuck? Here's a hint!

In PostGIS, the longitude comes first. Also, remember to put your points in quotation marks.