I have a mysql database table that will store locations for buildings and events and a few other things. All locations are stored in one table, and linked to buildings, events etc through their own many to many table. That way I can just display dots on a map, and also allow filtering etc.
However the problem comes with some things having a single location so 1 lat,long but some like a track has a number of lat long positions, and something like a large stadium might have a polygon over it. These are also stored as a list of lat,longs with the first and last being the same.
Im wondering how I should store this in the mysql db though. Originally I just had a column for lat, long and id for the lookup table. Should I have ANOTHER lookup table for the co-ordinates or serialise the data before putting it into the DB in some way or should I just store the whole string in one field lat1,long1 lat1,long1;lat2,long2;lat1,long1
Any suggestions?