I want to be free

Useful function.

DELIMITER //

DROP FUNCTION IF EXISTS DISTANCE; //

CREATE FUNCTION DISTANCE( lat1 DOUBLE, lon1 DOUBLE, lat2 DOUBLE, lon2 DOUBLE )
    RETURNS DOUBLE NO SQL DETERMINISTIC
    COMMENT 'counts distance (km) between 2 points on Earth surface'
BEGIN
    DECLARE dtor DOUBLE DEFAULT 57.295800;

    RETURN (6371 * acos(sin( lat1/dtor) * sin(lat2/dtor) +
        cos(lat1/dtor) * cos(lat2/dtor) *
        cos(lon2/dtor - lon1/dtor)));
END; //

DELIMITER ;

In next post I will explain how I used this function to implement a reverse geocoding — it’s useful when you need to find a closest city by given coordinates.