-d
Drops the database table before creating a new table with the data in the Shape file.

-a
Appends data from the Shape file into the database table. Note that to use this option to load multiple files, the files must have the same attributes and same data types.

-c
Creates a new table and populates it from the Shape file. This is the default mode.

-p
Only produces the table creation SQL code, without adding any actual data. This can be used if you need to completely separate the table creation and data loading steps.

-D
Use the PostgreSQL "dump" format for the output data. This can be combined with -a, -c and -d. It is much faster to load than the default "insert" SQL format. Use this for very large data sets.

-s <SRID>
Creates and populates the geometry tables with the specified SRID.

-k
Keep identifiers‘ case (column, schema and attributes). Note that attributes in Shapefile are all UPPERCASE.

-i
Coerce all integers to standard 32-bit integers, do not create 64-bit bigints, even if the DBF header signature appears to warrant it.

-I
Create a GiST index on the geometry column.

-w
Output WKT format, for use with older (0.x) versions of PostGIS. Note that this will introduce coordinate drifts and will drop M values from shapefiles.

-W <encoding>
Specify encoding of the input data (dbf file). When used, all attributes of the dbf are converted from the specified encoding to UTF8. The resulting SQL output will contain a SET CLIENT_ENCODING to UTF8 command, so that the backend will be able to reconvert from UTF8 to whatever encoding the database is configured to use internally.

Note that -a, -c, -d and -p are mutually exclusive.