[postgis-users] PostgreSQL geometric data types vs GEOMETRY data type

[Paul Norman]

> From: postgis-users-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:postgis-users-
> bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Peter Len
> Subject: [postgis-users] PostgreSQL geometric data types vs GEOMETRY
> data type
> 
> I am using PostgreSQL 9.1 with PostGIS.  I am still doing a lot of
> documentation reading but have the following question....  PostgreSQL
> comes with some default geometric datatypes like POINT and POLYGON.  I
> created a couple of tables with these types and added some data.  After
> installing PostGIS, I came to find an example of creating a table with a
> GEOMETRY column.  It then went on to show the use of the PostGIS
> ST_GeomFromText method.  That worked fine on my test table that I
> created with the GEOMETRY(Point) data type but did not work on the table
> with just the POINT data type.  So.....  to use the PostGIS
> methods/functions, do the spatial columns need to be defined as GEOMETRY
> / GEOGRAPHY rather than the PostgreSQL data types of POINT, POLYGON,
> etc?

PostgreSQL POINT, etc are unrelated to PostGIS data types.