Question

I’m working with the PADUS OBI shape file, not that that’s probably important.

I’m running the shape file through shp2pgsql using the default options, as in:

shp2pgsql PADUS_1_1_CBI_Edition.shp > PADUS.sql

Then I’m trying to import the SQL into Postgres by doing:

psql -d padusdb -f PADUS.sql

And getting the following error:

psql:PADUS.sql:36: ERROR:  function addgeometrycolumn(unknown, unknown, unknown, unknown, unknown, integer) does not exist
LINE 1: SELECT AddGeometryColumn('','padus_1_1_cbi_edition','the_geo...
HINT:  No function matches the given name and argument types. You might need to add explicit type casts.

I have PostGIS installed.

The SQL commands leading to the error (being put into an otherwise empty database) are:

SET CLIENT_ENCODING TO UTF8;
SET STANDARD_CONFORMING_STRINGS TO ON;
BEGIN;
CREATE TABLE "padus_1_1_cbi_edition" (gid serial PRIMARY KEY,
"us_id" int4,
"category" varchar(10),
"gis_acres" numeric,
...
BUNCH OF COLUMNS, none of which is called "the_geom"
...
"comments" varchar(200),
"shape_leng" numeric,
"shape_area" numeric);
SELECT AddGeometryColumn('','padus_1_1_cbi_edition','the_geom','-1','MULTIPOLYGON',2);
COMMIT;

Any thoughts on what this might mean and how to resolve the problem?

Answer 1

So, as it turns out, it is not enough to simply have installed PostGIS on one’s machine.

Originally, I’d chosen sudo apt-get install postgresql postgis on Ubuntu 10.10. This left me with a working version of PostGRE 8.4, but no sign of PostGIS.

Therefore, I tried sudo apt-get install postgresql-8.4-postgis.

But one’s work doesn’t end there! You need to set up the PostGIS database.

This website provides instructions on doing this and using the database afterwards.