ogr2ogr assigns inaccurate srs in

Question

When using ogr2ogr to export from PostGIS to Shapefile a geometry(PolygonZM, 25832) table, the coordinate references system (SRS) is not accurate.

ogrsrsinfo returns the correct SRS (below the SRSs in WKT format from XXX.prj file and from output of gdalsrsinfo -o wkt epsg:25832). Am I doing something wrong?

PS I tried using ogr2ogr -a_srs EPSG:25832, but the WKT in the .prj file is still incorrect.

XXX.prj from ogr2ogr

PROJCS["ETRS89_UTM_zone_32N",GEOGCS["GCS_ETRS_1989",DATUM["D_ETRS_1989",SPHEROID["GRS_1980",6378137,298.257222101]],PRIMEM["Greenwich",0],UNIT["Degree",0.017453292519943295]],PROJECTION["Transverse_Mercator"],PARAMETER["latitude_of_origin",0],PARAMETER["central_meridian",9],PARAMETER["scale_factor",0.9996],PARAMETER["false_easting",500000],PARAMETER["false_northing",0],UNIT["Meter",1]]

gdalsrsinfo -o wkt epsg:25832

PROJCS["ETRS89 / UTM zone 32N",GEOGCS["ETRS89",DATUM["European_Terrestrial_Reference_System_1989",SPHEROID["GRS 1980",6378137,298.257222101,AUTHORITY["EPSG","7019"]],TOWGS84[0,0,0,0,0,0,0],AUTHORITY["EPSG","6258"]],PRIMEM["Greenwich",0,AUTHORITY["EPSG","8901"]],UNIT["degree",0.0174532925199433,AUTHORITY["EPSG","9122"]],AUTHORITY["EPSG","4258"]],PROJECTION["Transverse_Mercator"],PARAMETER["latitude_of_origin",0],PARAMETER["central_meridian",9],PARAMETER["scale_factor",0.9996],PARAMETER["false_easting",500000],PARAMETER["false_northing",0],UNIT["metre",1,AUTHORITY["EPSG","9001"]],AXIS["Easting",EAST],AXIS["Northing",NORTH],AUTHORITY["EPSG","25832"]]

Answer 1

There are different dialects of WKT for projections as you can read from the manual page of gdalsrsinfo http://www.gdal.org/gdalsrsinfo.html.

.prj files are typically used by ESRI software but your gdalsrsinfo -0 wkt prints OGC WKT. Use -o wkt_esri instead. As you can see the result if different then.

gdalsrsinfo -o wkt epsg:25832 PROJCS["ETRS89 / UTM zone 32N",GEOGCS["ETRS89",DATUM["European_Terrestrial_Reference_System_1989", SPHEROID["GRS 1980",6378137,298.257222101,AUTHORITY["EPSG","7019"]],TOWGS84[0,0,0,0,0,0,0], AUTHORITY["EPSG","6258"]],PRIMEM["Greenwich",0,AUTHORITY["EPSG","8901"]], UNIT["degree",0.0174532925199433,AUTHORITY["EPSG","9122"]] ,AUTHORITY["EPSG","4258"]],PROJECTION["Transverse_Mercator"],PARAMETER["latitude_of_origin",0], PARAMETER["central_meridian",9],PARAMETER["scale_factor",0.9996], PARAMETER["false_easting",500000],PARAMETER["false_northing",0], UNIT["metre",1,AUTHORITY["EPSG","9001"]],AXIS["Easting",EAST],AXIS["Northing",NORTH], AUTHORITY["EPSG","25832"]]

gdalsrsinfo -o wkt_esri epsg:25832 PROJCS["ETRS89_UTM_zone_32N",GEOGCS["GCS_ETRS_1989",DATUM["D_ETRS_1989", SPHEROID["GRS_1980",6378137,298.257222101]],PRIMEM["Greenwich",0], UNIT["Degree",0.017453292519943295]],PROJECTION["Transverse_Mercator"], PARAMETER["latitude_of_origin",0],PARAMETER["central_meridian",9], PARAMETER["scale_factor",0.9996],PARAMETER["false_easting",500000], PARAMETER["false_northing",0],UNIT["Meter",1]]