Impossible to Install PG gem on my mac with Mavericks

Question

I'm trying to install the pg gem in order to work again with my rails projects. But I get this error:

Building native extensions. This could take a while... ERROR: Error installing pg: ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

/Users/jeanosorio/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/bin/ruby extconf.rb checking for pg_config... no No pg_config... trying anyway. If 

building fails, please try again with --with-pg-config=/path/to/pg_config checking for libpq-fe.h... no Can't find the 'libpq-fe.h header * extconf.rb failed * Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of necessary libraries and/or headers. Check the mkmf.log file for more details. You may need configuration options.

Provided configuration options: --with-opt-dir --without-opt-dir --with-opt-include --without-opt-include=${opt-dir}/include --with-opt-lib --without-opt-lib=${opt-dir}/lib --with-make-prog --without-make-prog --srcdir=. --curdir --ruby=/Users/jeanosorio/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/bin/ruby --with-pg --without-pg --with-pg-config --without-pg-config --with-pg_config --without-pg_config --with-pg-dir --without-pg-dir --with-pg-include --without-pg-include=${pg-dir}/include --with-pg-lib --without-pg-lib=${pg-dir}/

Gem files will remain installed in /Users/jeanosorio/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/gems/2.0.0/gems/pg-0.17.0 for inspection. Results logged to /Users/jeanosorio/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/gems/2.0.0/gems/pg-0.17.0/ext/gem_make.out

I tried everything I found on stackoverflow but I still get this error.

If I try to install postgresql using brew I get the following waring:

Warning: postgresql-9.2.4 already installed, it's just not linked

If I try to link

brew link postgresql Linking /usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.2.4... Warning: Could not link postgresql. Unlinking...

Error: Could not symlink file: /usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.2.4/share/man/man7/WITH.7 /usr/local/share/man/man7 is not writable. You should change its permissions.

Help Please

NOTE: I already installed the command line tools for mavericks.

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If I uninstall using homebrew and try to install again, I get this error:

==> Downloading http://ftp.postgresql.org/pub/source/v9.2.4/postgresql-9.2.4.tar.bz2

################################################################## 100.0%

==> Patching patching file src/pl/plpython/Makefile patching file contrib/uuid-ossp/uuid-ossp.c ==> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.2.4 --datadir=/usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.2.4/share/postgresql --docdir=/usr/local/Cellar/p ==> make install-world ==> Caveats

Build Notes

If builds of PostgreSQL 9 are failing and you have version 8.x installed, you may need to remove the previous version first. See:
https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/issues/issue/2510

Create/Upgrade a Database

If this is your first install, create a database with: initdb /usr/local/var/postgres -E utf8

To migrate existing data from a previous major version (pre-9.2) of PostgreSQL, see:
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/static/upgrading.html

Loading Extensions

By default, Homebrew builds all available Contrib extensions. To see a list of all available extensions, from the psql command line, run:
SELECT * FROM pg_available_extensions;

To load any of the extension names, navigate to the desired database and run: CREATE EXTENSION [extension name];

For instance, to load the tablefunc extension in the current database, run: CREATE EXTENSION tablefunc;

For more information on the CREATE EXTENSION command, see:
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/static/sql-createextension.html For more information on extensions, see:
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/static/contrib.html

Other

Some machines may require provisioning of shared memory:
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/static/kernel-resources.html#SYSVIPC When installing the postgres gem, including ARCHFLAGS is recommended: ARCHFLAGS="-arch x86_64" gem install pg

To install gems without sudo, see the Homebrew wiki.

To have launchd start postgresql at login: ln -sfv /usr/local/opt/postgresql/*.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents Then to load postgresql now: launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.postgresql.plist Or, if you don't want/need launchctl, you can just run: pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres -l /usr/local/var/postgres/server.log start Warning: Could not link postgresql. Unlinking... Error: The brew link step did not complete successfully The formula built, but is not symlinked into /usr/local You can try again using `brew link postgresql' ==> Summary 🍺 /usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.2.4: 2831 files, 38M, built in 4.9 minutes

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SOLUTION:

I execute this command in order to change the permission of the folder:

sudo chown jeanosorio /usr/local/share/man/man7

Then

brew link postgresql Linking /usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.3.1... 421 symlinks created

And finally:

sudo ARCHFLAGS="-arch x86_64" gem install pg

Fetching: pg-0.17.0.gem (100%) Building native extensions. This could take a while... Successfully installed pg-0.17.0

Answer 1

If you want to avoid using MacPorts, you can download the Postgres App and place it into the Application directory.

Then, specify the location of newly downloaded pg_config:

gem install pg -- --with-pg-config=/Applications/Postgres.app/Contents/Versions/latest/bin/pg_config 

If you run in to missing headers problem, try specifying the include directory of the app:

gem install pg -- --with-pg-include='/Applications/Postgres.app/Contents/Versions/latest/include/'