[GIS] Install the Pgadmin3 shapefile importer plugin on a Mac(10.8)

pgadmin-3postgispostgresqlshapefile

I'm new to GIS related things and I'm setting up a Postgre/Postgis database for geospatial queries. I'd like to import various shapefiles into the database and I found that Pgadmin3 has a shapefile importer. How do I install the shapefile import plugin for pgadmin3 (I'm on Mountain Lion 10.8)?

Right now, the plugin menu is empty, and I have the very latest of Postgres and Postgis. See my comment below about what I've seen elsewhere on this topic.

Best Answer

I decided to go ahead and use the command line utility (shp2pgsql) to import my .shp file. Since I was able to get it working without too much trouble and a little Googling around I wanted to share this possible solution for anyone else who just wants to import a .shp file into Postgres and didn't want to deal with the hassle of trying to get pgadmin's GUI geospatial data importer. To import a shapefile here is the command (of course you need both Postgres and Postgis installed, first):

shp2pgsql -I -s <SRID> <PATH/TO/SHAPEFILE> <SCHEMA>.<DBTABLE> | psql -d <DATABASE>

And here's the OpenGeo docs explaining each of the above parameters:

The command parameters are:
<SRID>Spatial reference identifier
<PATH/TO/SHAPEFILE>Full path to the shapefile (such as C:\MyData\roads\roads.shp)
<SCHEMA>Target schema where the new table will be created
<DBTABLE>New database table to be created (usually the same name as the source shapefile)
<DATABASE>Target database where the table will be created

So just as an example, here was my command:

shp2pgsql -I -s 3857 ~/Downloads/MoGeospatialData/MO_2012_Senate_Districts.shp public.geospatial-data | psql -p 5432 -d vetting-geospatial

If you're not sure where to get the SRID just go here and upload your .prj file and use the topmost match it generates: http://prj2epsg.org/search

And for a comprehensive explanation of this CLI and importing data in general, just check out this great documentation from OpenGeo: http://suite.opengeo.org/docs/dataadmin/pgGettingStarted/shp2pgsql.html

I hope this helps someone!

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