4

I've written a custom callback function for ST_MapAlgebra and I want to pass additional arguments to it. The function is pretty useless - it just generates a raster filled with normal random values according to a user-specified mean and standard deviation.

I tried including the extra arguments in the string, like so:

...
ST_MapAlgebra(
    b1.rast, -- raster to operate on
    1,
    'generate_random_raster(double precision[][][], integer[][],  ''3'', ''1'')'::regprocedure
  ),
...

And like this:

...
ST_MapAlgebra(
    b1.rast, -- raster to operate on
    1,
    'generate_random_raster(double precision[][][], integer[][],  VARIADIC ARRAY[3,5]::text')'::regprocedure
  ),
...

It works fine if I hard code the values I want to use, so the callback itself isn't a problem.

How do I pass additional arguments to a custom ST_MapAlgebra function?

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2
  • Excellent question. The ST_MapAlgebra function is very powerful, but not super well documented. There is a very entertaining and completely nuts blog post from Boston GIS that is the best treatment i have seen on this subject.
    – John Powell
    Mar 30, 2017 at 11:40
  • I've been working on changing that a bit - I'm new to this and I want to help smooth out the learning curve for other newbies. I've written a couple examples if you'd like to check them out.
    – nronnei
    Mar 31, 2017 at 18:00

1 Answer 1

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6

Additional arguments are passed as the 6th, and so on, arguments, after the custom function signature:

ST_MapAlgebra(b1.rast, -- raster to operate on
              1, -- band
              'generate_random_raster(double precision[], integer[], text[])'::regprocedure, -- custom function signature
              pixeltype, -- can be null
              extenttype, -- can be null
              customextent, -- can be null
              distancex, -- can be null
              distancey, -- can be null
              firstextraargument,
              secondextraargument,
              ...
  )

Some demo scripts can be found on github.

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6
  • 2
    I think the OP is asking about the variadic args
    – John Powell
    Mar 30, 2017 at 17:10
  • I was indeed referring to the variadic arguments.
    – nronnei
    Mar 30, 2017 at 18:17
  • 1
    firstextraargument and secondextraargument are variadic arguments.
    – Pierre Racine
    Mar 30, 2017 at 21:49
  • 1
    If you could provide an example of actually using them, it would be really useful. It is an area where the docs are a bit sparse.
    – John Powell
    Mar 31, 2017 at 7:36
  • I agree this needs more doc or a good article. You can find an (a bit complex) example in the ST_ExtractToRaster() function of the PostGIS Addons: github.com/pedrogit/postgisaddons/blob/master/…
    – Pierre Racine
    Mar 31, 2017 at 14:41

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