Description

Returns true if every point of B lies in the interior of A (or equivalently, no point of B lies in the the boundary or exterior of A).

In mathematical terms: ST_ContainsProperly(A, B) ⇔ Int(A) ⋂ B = B

A contains B properly if the DE-9IM Intersection Matrix for the two geometries matches [T**FF*FF*]

A does not properly contain itself, but does contain itself.

A use for this predicate is computing the intersections of a set of geometries with a large polygonal geometry. Since intersection is a fairly slow operation, it can be more efficient to use containsProperly to filter out test geometries which lie fully inside the area. In these cases the intersection is known a priori to be exactly the original test geometry.

	This function automatically includes a bounding box comparison that makes use of any spatial indexes that are available on the geometries. To avoid index use, use the function _ST_ContainsProperly.

	The advantage of this predicate over ST_Contains and ST_Intersects is that it can be computed more efficiently, with no need to compute topology at individual points.

Performed by the GEOS module.

Availability: 1.4.0

Enhanced: 3.0.0 enabled support for GEOMETRYCOLLECTION

	Do not use this function with invalid geometries. You will get unexpected results.

Examples

This example tests a circle within another circle.

WITH circles AS (
  SELECT ST_Buffer(center, 10) AS smallc,
         ST_Buffer(center, 20) AS bigc
  FROM (SELECT 'POINT(1 2)'::geometry AS center) AS p
)
SELECT
  ST_ContainsProperly(smallc, bigc) AS smallcontainspropbig,
  ST_ContainsProperly(bigc, smallc) AS bigcontainspropsmall,
  ST_ContainsProperly(bigc, ST_Union(smallc, bigc)) AS bigcontainspropunion,
  ST_Equals(bigc, ST_Union(smallc, bigc)) AS bigisunion,
  ST_Covers(bigc, ST_ExteriorRing(bigc)) AS bigcoversexterior,
  ST_ContainsProperly(bigc, ST_ExteriorRing(bigc)) AS bigcontainsexterior
FROM circles;

-[ RECORD 1 ]-----
smallcontainspropbig   | f
bigcontainspropsmall   | t
bigcontainspropunion   | f
bigisunion             | t
bigcoversexterior      | t
bigcontainsexterior    | f

Figure

This example demonstrates the difference between contains and contains-properly predicates.

WITH input(geom) AS (VALUES
  (ST_Buffer(ST_Point(1, 1), 5, 1)),
  (ST_MakeLine(ST_Point(1, 1), ST_Point(-1, -1))),
  (ST_Point(1, 1))
)
SELECT ST_GeometryType(geom) AS geomtype,
       ST_Contains(geom, geom) AS acontainsa,
       ST_ContainsProperly(geom, geom) AS acontainspropa,
       ST_Contains(geom, ST_Boundary(geom)) AS acontainsba,
       ST_ContainsProperly(geom, ST_Boundary(geom)) AS acontainspropba
FROM input;

  geomtype    | acontainsa | acontainspropa | acontainsba | acontainspropba
--------------+------------+----------------+-------------+-----------------
ST_Polygon    | t          | f              | f           | f
ST_LineString | t          | f              | f           | f
ST_Point      | t          | t              | f           | f
 

Figure

See Also

ST_GeometryType, ST_Boundary, ST_Contains, ST_Covers, ST_CoveredBy, ST_Equals, ST_Relate, ST_Within