66.2. Built-in Operator Classes

The core PostgreSQL distribution includes the SP-GiST operator classes shown in Table 66.1.

Table 66.1. Built-in SP-GiST Operator Classes

NameIndexed Data TypeIndexable OperatorsOrdering Operators
kd_point_opspoint << <@ <^ >> >^ ~= <->
quad_point_opspoint << <@ <^ >> >^ ~= <->
range_opsany range type && &< &> -|- << <@ = >> @>
box_opsbox << &< && &> >> ~= @> <@ &<| <<| |>> |&>
poly_opspolygon << &< && &> >> ~= @> <@ &<| <<| |>> |&> <->
text_opstext < <= = > >= ~<=~ ~<~ ~>=~ ~>~ ^@
inet_opsinet, cidr && >> >>= > >= <> << <<= < <= =

Of the two operator classes for type point, quad_point_ops is the default. kd_point_ops supports the same operators but uses a different index data structure that may offer better performance in some applications.

The quad_point_ops, kd_point_ops and poly_ops operator classes support the <-> ordering operator, which enables the k-nearest neighbor (k-NN) search over indexed point or polygon data sets.