Introduction

There are several ways to write PostGIS programs; in this chapter, we will see a few of them. You will mainly use the Python language throughout this chapter. Python is a fantastic language with a plethora of GIS and a scientific library that can be combined with PostGIS to write awesome geospatial applications.

In case you are new to Python, you can quickly get productive with these excellent web resources:

• The official Python tutorial at http://docs.python.org/2/tutorial/

• The popular Dive into Python book at http://www.diveintopython.net/

• The Learn Python in the hard way class for a task-oriented training at http://learnpythonthehardway.org/

You can combine Python with some excellent and popular libraries such as:

• Psycopg: This is the most complete and popular Python DB API implementation for PostgreSQL; see http://initd.org/psycopg/

• GDAL Python bindings: These are used to unchain the powerful GDAL library in your Python scripts; see http://www.gdal.org/gdal_tutorial.html

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