Creating a SQL view
You probably know how to create a SQL view. Using views lets you represent data in different ways, extracting and transforming the data and avoiding data duplication.
With RDBMS, you can store views inside the database. In this case, a view is just a feature type for GeoServer, just like for a table.
You can also use a different approach with GeoServer, storing the SQL code inside your GeoServer configuration. This way, SQL views allow the execution of a custom SQL query on each request to the layer. This avoids the need to create a database view for complex queries.
Note
We use PostGIS in this book. While it is one of the most powerful spatial databases available, not to mention that it is free to use, you may need to use other ...
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