Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Importing nonspatial tabular data (CSV)
using PostGIS functions
Thereareacoupleofalternativeapproachestoimporta
Comma Separated Values
(
CSV
) file, which stores attributes and geometries in PostGIS. In this recipe, we will
usetheapproachofimportingsuchafileusingthePostgreSQL
COPY
commandand
a couple of PostGIS functions.
Getting ready
Wewillimportthe
firenews.csv
filethatstoresaseriesofwebnewscollectedfrom
thevariousRSSfeedsrelatedtoforestfiresinEuropeinthecontextofthe
European
Forest Fire Information System
(
EFFIS
), available at
http://effis.jrc.ec.europa.eu/
.
For each news feed, there are attributes like
place name
,
size
of the fire in hec-
tares,
URL
,andsoon.Mostimportantly,therearethe
x
and
y
fieldsthatgivethepo-
sitionofthegeolocalizednewsindecimaldegrees(intheWGS84spatialreference
system, SRID = 4326).
How to do it...
The steps you need to followto complete this recipe are as shown:
1. InspectthestructureoftheCSVfile,
firenews.csv
,whichyoucanfindwith-
inthebookdataset(ifyouareonWindows,opentheCSVfilewithaneditor
such as Notepad).
Tip
Downloading the example code
You can download the example code files for all Packt topics you have
purchased from your account at
http://www.packtpub.com
. If you pur-
