cube

data type for multidimensional cubes
Repository
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/cube.html
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/cube.html

Overview

PackageVersionCategoryLicenseLanguage
cube1.5TYPEPostgreSQLC
IDExtensionBinLibLoadCreateTrustRelocSchema
3950cubeNoYesNoYesNoNo-
Relatedseg intarray prefix semver unit pgpdf pglite_fusion md5hash
Depended Byearthdistance pg4ml

Version

PG18PG17PG16PG15PG14
1.51.51.51.51.5

Install

Note: This is a built-in contrib extension of PostgreSQL

CREATE EXTENSION cube;

Usage

cube: multi-dimensional cube data type

The cube extension provides a data type for representing multi-dimensional cubes (up to 100 dimensions).

CREATE EXTENSION cube;

Input Formats

SELECT '(1,2),(3,4)'::cube;         -- 2D cube
SELECT '(1,2,3)'::cube;              -- 3D point (zero-volume)
SELECT cube(1.0, 2.0);               -- 1D cube from 1 to 2
SELECT cube(ARRAY[1,2], ARRAY[3,4]); -- 2D cube from arrays

Operators

OperatorDescription
&&Overlaps
@>Contains
<@Contained in
->Extract n-th coordinate
<->Euclidean distance
<#>Taxicab (L-1) distance
<=>Chebyshev (L-inf) distance

Functions

SELECT cube_dim('(1,2),(3,4)'::cube);                  -- 2
SELECT cube_ll_coord('(1,2),(3,4)'::cube, 1);          -- 1
SELECT cube_ur_coord('(1,2),(3,4)'::cube, 1);          -- 3
SELECT cube_is_point(cube(1,1));                        -- true
SELECT cube_distance('(1,2)'::cube, '(3,4)'::cube);    -- 2.828...
SELECT cube_union('(1,2)'::cube, '(3,4)'::cube);       -- (1,2),(3,4)
SELECT cube_inter('(0,0),(2,2)'::cube, '(1,1),(3,3)'::cube);
SELECT cube_subset(cube('(1,3,5),(6,7,8)'), ARRAY[2]); -- (3),(7)
SELECT cube_enlarge('(1,2),(3,4)'::cube, 0.5, 2);      -- expand by radius

CREATE INDEX idx ON points USING gist (location);

-- Find nearest point to (0.5, 0.5, 0.5)
SELECT * FROM points
ORDER BY location <-> cube(ARRAY[0.5, 0.5, 0.5])
LIMIT 1;

Dimension Handling

When operating on cubes of different dimensions, the lower-dimensional cube is treated as having zeroes for missing coordinates.


Last Modified 2026-03-12: add pg extension catalog (95749bf)