LINESTRING0x0

LINESTRING0x0 is a non-standard identifier that appears in some geospatial data workflows to denote a variant of the LINESTRING geometry. It is not part of the official OpenGIS Simple Features standards, such as WKT or WKB. In practice, LINESTRING0x0 is commonly used as a sentinel value indicating an empty or placeholder linestring, typically in datasets where a feature has no meaningful line geometry or where a null geometry is represented with a dedicated token.

In textual formats, LINESTRING0x0 is encountered as the literal string LINESTRING0x0 rather than a valid WKT like LINESTRING EMPTY. In binary encodings, it may be encoded as a zero-point structure or a special flag that marks the geometry as null. Because of its non-standard nature, different systems may implement LINESTRING0x0 in slightly different ways, which can affect interoperability.

When reading data, software should treat LINESTRING0x0 as equivalent to an empty linestring or as a missing value depending on the data model. Many pipelines prefer mapping LINESTRING0x0 to LINESTRING EMPTY to preserve compatibility with standard GIS tools. Validation routines should be aware of this token and either reject it or normalize it to a standard form during import or export.

In relation to standard concepts, LINESTRING is the standard geometry type for representing linear paths, and LINESTRING EMPTY is the standard representation for an empty geometry in WKT. LINESTRING0x0 sits outside these standards and is best treated as a legacy or application-specific convention. See also LINESTRING, LINESTRING EMPTY, WKT, WKB, and OpenGIS standards.