Mac OS X Panther for Unix Geeks, Second Edition

PostgreSQL

To get the source distribution of PostgreSQL, download the latest tarball from one of the mirrors at http://www.postgresql.org/mirrors-ftp.html. At the time of this writing, the latest release was 7.4, so we downloaded postgresql-7.4.tar.bz2.

Compiling PostgreSQL

Before installing PostgreSQL, you must install readline (http://www.gnu.org/directory/readline.html). This program enables support for command-line editing and history in the PostgreSQL shell (psql). Use fink install readline to install it, if you have Fink installed. You also need the most recent version of bison (http://www.gnu.org/software/bison/bison.html), which you can obtain with fink install bison (double check to ensure that /sw/bin appears first in your $PATH; this is the default after you’ve installed Fink).

To compile PostgreSQL from source:

1. Extract the tarball:

   $ cd ~/src
   $ tar xvfj ~/Desktop/postgresql-7.4.tar.bz2

2. Change to the top-level directory of the tar and run the configure script. We suggest specifying a prefix of /usr/local/pgsql so it stays out the way of any other binaries you have in /usr/local.

   $ cd postgresql-7.4
   $ ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/pgsql \
   >   --with-includes=/sw/include --with-libs=/sw/lib

3. Next, type make to compile PostgreSQL. Go take a walk around the block while you wait (compiling could take 30 minutes or more).

Installing PostgreSQL

If everything went OK, you’re ready to install. If it didn’t go OK, check the PostgreSQL mail list archives (http://www.postgresql.org/lists.html ...