[SEDONA-4] Graceful handling of null geometries in ST_Distance function

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Minor
• Resolution: Fixed
• Fix Version/s: 1.2.0
• Labels: pull-request-available
• Assignee: Jia Yu
• Reporter: Hugh Saalmans
• Created: 03/Dec/20 03:55
• Updated: 17/Apr/22 06:02
• Resolved: 17/Apr/22 06:02

Description

Using the ST_Distance function with a null geometry triggers a java.lang.NullPointerException error.

Expected behaviour is for the function to return null.

This is a problem in situations when you can't guarantee a geometry isn't null; such as when using lead and lag with windowing. The workaround is to use a case statement to test for null geoms.

Platform tested on: AWS EMR with Pyspark 3.0.0 (Python 3.7.9) and Sedona 1.3.2 SNAPSHOT.

I suspect this issue exists in other functions as well but haven't tested.

Issue Links

• links to: GitHub Pull Request #578