New "Geolocation" data type

[Updated:  2012-11-14

I apologize I made a typo.  My original post had the fields to be
Location_Latitude__s and Location_Longitude__s.

They should instead be

Location__Latitude__s and Location__Longitude__s.

Note the two underline characters between your field name and the "Latitude__s" or "Longitude__s" portion instead of one as I originally posted.  I have already updated my code below.

]

Currently the new Geolocation data type is fairly limited.  I'll let you read the limitations here.

However, there are a few things to note.

1. a Geolocation field is actually a component field.  It contains 2 pieces of information, Latitude and Longitude (and also an internally used information which is not exposed to us users or developers.)

2. you can use either degrees or decimal places to describe your location.  However, it is important to note that Salesforce always uses the decimal point version.  The degree option is purely for representation purposes.  In fact, when you're entering a geolocation information, you are entering the values in decimal places, and then it'll be displayed as degrees after the data is saved.  The decimal point version is probably the easier way to go.

3. If you have a custom field of this type, say, Location__c, as you know, this is a component field that actually contains 2 pieces of information.  In your SOQL, if you need to access the latitude or longitude, all you need to do is to drop the "__c", and instead append it with "__Latitude__s" or "__Longitude__s".  For example,

SELECT Location__Latitude__s, Location__Longitude__s FROM
Person LIMIT 1;

4. Seems to me the only main thing you can now do is to calculate the distance between two points.  You now have 2 new SF functions to use, Distance() and Geolocation().  However, Geolocation() cannot be used alone.  It is always used in conjunction with Distance().  You may want to refer to the manual for more information.  The manual probably explains the usage better than I can.  NOTE:  I am able to use Distance() in the WHERE clause of a SOQL, but I have not been able to use it in the SELECT clause of the SOQL.  I will look further into it.