[mapserver-users] Problems getting started with POSTGIS

[Stephen Woodbridge]

On 3/18/2011 3:41 PM, Andy Colson wrote:
> On 3/18/2011 11:52 AM, Jeff Dege wrote:
>> I’ve been using MapServer with shapefiles for some time. I’m trying to
>> convert a site to PostGIS, and I’m having problems.
>>
>> I’ve successfully installed PostGIS on my Ubunto 10.04 box, and copied a
>> number of shapefiles into it, using shp2pgsql. I can view the new tables
>> using qGIS, so I’m sure the data is right.
>>
>> So now I’ve copies a mapfile that was working against the original
>> shapefiles, and I’m trying to convert it to use PostGIS. I’m working on
>> just one layer, and I’m trying to test that layer with shp2img.
>>
>> I’ve added to the LAYER definition:
>>
>> LAYER
>>
>> NAME “countyboundaries”
>>
>> CONNECTIONTYPE postgis
>>
>> CONNECTION “host=localhost dbname=test_db user=gis password=xxxxx”
>>
>> DATA “the_geom from gis_schema.county”
>>
>> […]
>>
>> END
>>
>> As I said, I know the data is in the database, because I can load it as
>> a PostGIS layer from qGIS. Column and table names are right, because
>> when I run “select the_geom from gis_schema.county” in the query tool I
>> get the data.
>>
>> But when I run shp2img from the commandline, I get an error:
>>
>> $ shp2img -m test.map -o test.gif -i GIF -l countyboundaries
>>
>> msDrawMap(): Image handling error. Failed to draw layer named
>> ‘countyboundaries’.
>>
>> msPostGISParseData(): Query error. Error parsing PostGIS DATA variable.
>> Must contain ‘geometry
>>
>> from table’ or ‘geometry from (subselect) as foo’. County
>>
>> shp2img is MapServer version 5.6.6, and the output from -v does contain
>> “INPUT=POSTGIS”.
>>
>> Any ideas? I’m trying to keep things simple, and it’s frustrating when
>> simple doesn’t work.
>
> I cant see anything really wrong. I'm doing mostly the same thing.
>
> however:
>
>  > CONNECTION “dbname=test_db user=gis password=xxxxx”
>
> because mapserver and PG run on the same box, I left off the
> host=localhost... not sure if its important.

Yes, it might be, it depends on how postgresql is configured. You can 
test it with:

psql -U gis test_db
vs:
psql -U gis -h localhost test_db

>  > DATA "the_geom from gis_schema.county using unique gid using srid=-1"
>
> I also have the unique and srid things, again not sure if there'd be a
> difference.

This also might be a problem. In general you should not use srid=-1 in 
the database of in the mapfile. When you load your data you should 
specify the correct srid and reference in the mapfile.

in your mapfile add:

MAP
   CONFIG MS_ERRORFILE "stderr"
   DEBUG 10

then run your shp2img again and you might get more debug info. You can 
also add the DEBUG 10 to you LAYER and I think it will spit out the SQL 
it is trying to execute so you can try it in psql and maybe get helpful 
messages there.

-Steve W

>
> And as a last hint, you can try bumping up the debug:
>
> MAP
> CONFIG "MS_ERRORFILE" "/tmp/mapserver.log"
> ...
> LAYER
> DEBUG 4
> ...
> END
>
> -Andy
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