[OSM-dev] osm2pgsql for 64-bit IDs

[Anthony]

On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 10:08 AM, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Anthony wrote:
>>
>> That's too bad.  More than 90% of node ids are completely useless as
>> they refer to only one way.  This is a significant drag on the
>> database,
>
> Yeah well. There are other ways we could reduce "drag" on the database but
> introduce problems. This is one of them ;)
>
> Imagine there's a way with anonymous points and you make a branch off of
> that. You'd have to convert that node to a "proper" node and split the
> linestring. We'd end up with a crippled system like "routable shapefiles"
> where you need an individual linestring for each bit of way between two
> intersections.

Why would you split the linestring?

> As I said, it is very unlikely to happen because the disadvantages outweigh
> the advantages. Maybe someone finds a good way to get rid of the
> disadvantages but nothing has been presented by anyone yet, and I doubt
> there *is* a way to do it.

As I said, that's too bad.

Do you care to elaborate on what the disadvantages would be?  The only
disadvantage I can see is that the API would have to be altered.