GeoDjango: editing the standard PostGIS template to include OSGB36

Question

I've just installed GeoDjango (yay) and now I'm trying to follow these instructions to set up an existing GeoDjango project, which needs OSGB36:

After you've installed and got a PostGIS template, log
in to it and update the proj4text column of SRID 27700 to include
+datum=OSGB36, and update SRID 29902 to have +datum=ire65.

However. If I connect to the postgis_template created as part of the GeoDjango install, it doesn't appear to have any rows or columns at all:

domesday=# \c template_postgis
psql (8.4.4)
You are now connected to database "template_postgis".
template_postgis=# \d
No relations found.

How do I make the edits necessary to update SRID 27700 and SRID 29902 as described here? Have I created template_postgis wrong? I didn't see any errors during install.

Answer 1

What you should see is:

template_postgis=# \d
              List of relations
 Schema |       Name       | Type  |  Owner   
--------+------------------+-------+----------
 public | geometry_columns | table | postgres
 public | spatial_ref_sys  | table | postgres
(2 rows)

Since you're not, you probably had a problem running:

$ psql -d template_postgis -f $POSTGIS_SQL_PATH/postgis.sql

On my (Ubuntu+PG8.3) system, that file is actually called lwpostgis.sql. I had similar issues when installing the first time.