[postgis-users] Notes on Pgsql 7.2.1 / Postgis 0.7.1 / Mapserver 3.7 (cvs)

[Tyler Mitchell]

After a few gruelling hours I've got the latest version of postgis running
(postgres 7.2.1 and postgis 0.7.1).  I had a few problems that I thought I
would lay out here, since others may benefit.

-I'd installed various versions of both postgresql and postgis in the past
which muddied the waters a bit giving me all sorts of strange errors when
trying to do the "createlang" step or loading the "postgis.sql" commands
-I fixed this by basically wiping out (yes, rm -Rf /usr/local/pgsql and
/var/lib/pgsql oddly enough).  Then reinstalling from source code and
running "initdb", but things didn't really get fixed up until I restarted
postmaster using "/etc/rc.d/init.d/postgresql start".  That appeared to have
been hardwired to use /var/lib/pgsql/data for my datafiles and it looks like
it reran "initdb" for me automatically.  Obviously, I lost all my earlier
test databases, but that was no big deal (for me anyway).
-Then I loaded some data into the database (after doing the "createlang
plpgsql" and loading the "postgis.sql" table.

-Now on to mapserver.  I was getting a fairly generic error about parsing
postgis connection info which was really irritating!  I tried so many
permutations of the darn CONNECTION string in my map file that I was
starting to drool on my keyboard - all with no avail.  I had been running a
3.6 development version (apparently).
-I then download the cvs version of mapserver and built it and then things
really started to rock.  First off, if you have been stuck wondering why
your connections aren't working with mapserver - you'll appreciate the fact
that a bunch more debugging info will now get printed for you!  I assume
this is a change at the postgis end?  Good work, all around.

-My advice, get the latest versions of stuff before pulling your hair out
too too much :)

Thanks Refractions for making this all available.

p.s. If you want to skip using the shp2pgsql tool - start using GDAL/OGR
package (www.remotesensing.org/gdal) and convert directly from OGR data
types into the postgis database tables.  I've been using this to take
arcinfo coverages and shapefiles directly from their native format and into
the postgis database (even appending the shapes to existing tables!).