Importing .shp (shape) GIS files into mySQL db

Steps to import SHP files exported from GIS systems, into mySQL db:

To import GIS data into mySQL, we need to translate the geometry GIS descriptions into sql statements.

This can be achieved by using the opensource shp2mysql utility, along with cygwin1.dll (both in the same folter)

After generating the .sql file, all is left to do is to import it into mysql. I did it using sqlyog: right click in the target database → Import → Execute SQL Script → select the .sql file generated above.

But before doing that, you might do the following:

The table name where the data will be imported is derived from the sql output file name. Make sure you rename it in the Create Table statement, accordingly.

I had to manually fix the .sql file, to overcome the following issues:

1. shp2mysql will create two columns named ID. I renamed the 2nd one to _ID
2. my shp2mysql execution generates a 3D representation of each point, and I did not find a 3D syntax for MULTILINESTRING. I ended up replacing all 0.000000000000000 occurrences in the sql file to blank spaces, to fix it.
3. the generated sql file had a -1 SRS id for each generated gis representation in WKT. mySql stated -1 is invalid, we checked which SRS id was used in our other GIS dbs, figured out it was 0, then I replaced all occurrences of ,-1) with ,0) in my sql file.
4. shp2mysql will generate the sql file using a deprecated mysql function, GeometryFromText. According to mysql documentation, it was deprecated in mySql 5.7.6. Since my machine has mySql 8, I renamed all occurrences of it to ST_GeomFromText:

GeomFromText() and GeometryFromText() are deprecated as of MySQL 5.7.6 and will be removed in a future MySQL release. Use ST_GeomFromText() and ST_GeometryFromText() instead.

Now the file is valid and free of errors, and you can proceed and run the Execute SQL Script described above.

mySQL Error Code: 3037 Invalid GIS data provided to function st_geometryfromtext.

If you have been trying to find what's wrong with your geometry objects and why your sql insert statement is failing, check this, which reveals the cause (congrats to all of us who went "as far as completing a BSc degree in computer science" (and how far is that?) and could yet miss this...).

I was startled because, in cloning some tables from one DB schema to another, I was facing this error. But how come values that do exist in one table cannot be inserted (are treated as invalid) in another ?

Later on I heard that this was a change made in later versions of mySQL. So I assume the records were inserted at the time this constraint was not there yet. And they must have kept existing data as valid for backward compatibility.