Convert geometries to Well-Known Binary (WKB) format

Converts spatial geometries to their Well-Known Binary (WKB) representation. This function wraps DuckDB's ST_AsWkb spatial function.

Usage

ddbs_as_wkb(x, conn = NULL, quiet = FALSE)

Arguments

x

An sf spatial object. Alternatively, it can be a string with the name of a table with geometry column within the DuckDB database conn. Data is returned from this object.

conn

A connection object to a DuckDB database. If NULL, the function runs on a temporary DuckDB database.

quiet

A logical value. If TRUE, suppresses any informational messages. Defaults to FALSE.

Value

A list of raw vectors, where each element contains the WKB representation of a geometry

Details

Well-Known Binary (WKB) is a binary representation of vector geometry objects. WKB is more compact than WKT and is commonly used for efficient storage and transfer of spatial data between systems. Each geometry is returned as a raw vector of bytes.

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
## load packages
library(duckspatial)
library(sf)

# create a duckdb database in memory (with spatial extension)
conn <- ddbs_create_conn(dbdir = "memory")

## read data
argentina_sf <- st_read(system.file("spatial/argentina.geojson", package = "duckspatial"))

## store in duckdb
ddbs_write_vector(conn, argentina_sf, "argentina")

## convert geometries to WKB
wkb_list <- ddbs_as_wkb(conn = conn, "argentina")

## convert without using a connection
wkb_list <- ddbs_as_wkb(argentina_sf)
} # }