PostgreSQL 9.2.3 Documentation
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# 16.1. Building with Visual C++ or the Microsoft Windows SDK

PostgreSQL can be built using the Visual C++ compiler suite from Microsoft. These compilers can be either from Visual Studio, Visual Studio Express or some versions of the Microsoft Windows SDK. If you do not already have a Visual Studio environment set up, the easiest way is to use the compilers in the Windows SDK, which is a free download from Microsoft.

PostgreSQL is known to support compilation using the compilers shipped with Visual Studio 2005 to Visual Studio 2010 (including Express editions), as well as standalone Windows SDK releases 6.0 to 7.1. 64-bit PostgreSQL builds are only supported with Microsoft Windows SDK version 6.0a and above or Visual Studio 2008 and above.

The tools for building using Visual C++, are in the `src/tools/msvc` directory. When building, make sure there are no tools from MinGW or Cygwin present in your system PATH. Also, make sure you have all the required Visual C++ tools available in the PATH. In Visual Studio, start the Visual Studio Command Prompt. If you wish to build a 64-bit version, you must use the 64-bit version of the command, and vice versa. In the Microsoft Windows SDK, start the CMD shell listed under the SDK on the Start Menu. In recent SDK versions you can change the targeted CPU architecture by using the `setenv` command. All commands should be run from the `src\tools\msvc` directory.

Before you build, you may need to edit the file `config.pl` to reflect any configuration options you want to change, or the paths to any third party libraries to use. The complete configuration is determined by first reading and parsing the file `config_default.pl`, and then apply any changes from `config.pl`. For example, to specify the location of your Python installation, put the following in `config.pl`:

    $config->{python} = 'c:\python26';

You only need to specify those parameters that are different from what's in `config_default.pl`.

If you need to set any other environment variables, create a file called `buildenv.pl` and put the required commands there. For example, to add the path for bison when it's not in the PATH, create a file containing:

    $ENV{PATH}=$ENV{PATH} . ';c:\some\where\bison\bin';

## 16.1.1. Requirements

The following additional products are required to build PostgreSQL. Use the `config.pl` file to specify which directories the libraries are available in.

Microsoft Windows SDK

  It is recommended that you upgrade to the latest supported version of the Microsoft Windows SDK (currently version 7.1), available for download from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/.

  You must always include the Windows Headers and Libraries part of the SDK. If you install the Windows SDK including the Visual C++ Compilers, you don't need Visual Studio to build.

ActiveState Perl

  ActiveState Perl is required to run the build generation scripts. MinGW or Cygwin Perl will not work. It must also be present in the PATH. Binaries can be downloaded from http://www.activestate.com (Note: version 5.8 or later is required, the free Standard Distribution is sufficient).

The following additional products are not required to get started, but are required to build the complete package. Use the `config.pl` file to specify which directories the libraries are available in.

ActiveState TCL

  Required for building PL/TCL (Note: version 8.4 is required, the free Standard Distribution is sufficient).

Bison and Flex

  Bison and Flex are required to build from Git, but not required when building from a release file. Note that only Bison 1.875 or versions 2.2 and later will work. Also, Flex version 2.5.31 or later is required. Bison can be downloaded from http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net. Flex can be downloaded from http://www.postgresql.org/ftp/misc/winflex/. If you are using msysGit for accessing the PostgreSQL Git repository you probably already have recent versions of bison and flex in your Git binary directory.

  > Note: The Bison distribution from GnuWin32 appears to have a bug that causes Bison to malfunction when installed in a directory with spaces in the name, such as the default location on English installations `C:\Program Files\GnuWin32`. Consider installing into `C:\GnuWin32` instead.

Diff

  Diff is required to run the regression tests, and can be downloaded from http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net.

Gettext

  Gettext is required to build with NLS support, and can be downloaded from http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net. Note that binaries, dependencies and developer files are all needed.

MIT Kerberos

  Required for Kerberos authentication support. MIT Kerberos can be downloaded from http://web.mit.edu/Kerberos/dist/index.html.

libxml2 and libxslt

  Required for XML support. Binaries can be downloaded from http://zlatkovic.com/pub/libxml or source from http://xmlsoft.org. Note that libxml2 requires iconv, which is available from the same download location.

openssl

  Required for SSL support. Binaries can be downloaded from http://www.slproweb.com/products/Win32OpenSSL.html or source from http://www.openssl.org.

ossp-uuid

  Required for UUID-OSSP support (contrib only). Source can be downloaded from http://www.ossp.org/pkg/lib/uuid/.

Python

  Required for building PL/Python. Binaries can be downloaded from http://www.python.org.

zlib

  Required for compression support in pg_dump and pg_restore. Binaries can be downloaded from http://www.zlib.net.

## 16.1.2. Special Considerations for 64-bit Windows

PostgreSQL will only build for the x64 architecture on 64-bit Windows, there is no support for Itanium processors.

Mixing 32- and 64-bit versions in the same build tree is not supported. The build system will automatically detect if it's running in a 32- or 64-bit environment, and build PostgreSQL accordingly. For this reason, it is important to start the correct command prompt before building.

To use a server-side third party library such as python or openssl, this library must also be 64-bit. There is no support for loading a 32-bit library in a 64-bit server. Several of the third party libraries that PostgreSQL supports may only be available in 32-bit versions, in which case they cannot be used with 64-bit PostgreSQL.

## 16.1.3. Building

To build all of PostgreSQL in release configuration (the default), run the command:

    build

To build all of PostgreSQL in debug configuration, run the command:

    build DEBUG

To build just a single project, for example psql, run the commands:

    build psql
    build DEBUG psql

To change the default build configuration to debug, put the following in the `buildenv.pl` file:

    $ENV{CONFIG}="Debug";

It is also possible to build from inside the Visual Studio GUI. In this case, you need to run:

    perl mkvcbuild.pl

from the command prompt, and then open the generated `pgsql.sln` (in the root directory of the source tree) in Visual Studio.

## 16.1.4. Cleaning and Installing

Most of the time, the automatic dependency tracking in Visual Studio will handle changed files. But if there have been large changes, you may need to clean the installation. To do this, simply run the `clean.bat` command, which will automatically clean out all generated files. You can also run it with the `dist` parameter, in which case it will behave like `make distclean` and remove the flex/bison output files as well.

By default, all files are written into a subdirectory of the `debug` or `release` directories. To install these files using the standard layout, and also generate the files required to initialize and use the database, run the command:

    install c:\destination\directory

## 16.1.5. Running the Regression Tests

To run the regression tests, make sure you have completed the build of all required parts first. Also, make sure that the DLLs required to load all parts of the system (such as the Perl and Python DLLs for the procedural languages) are present in the system path. If they are not, set it through the `buildenv.pl` file. To run the tests, run one of the following commands from the `src\tools\msvc` directory:

    vcregress check
    vcregress installcheck
    vcregress plcheck
    vcregress contribcheck

To change the schedule used (default is parallel), append it to the command line like:

    vcregress check serial

For more information about the regression tests, see Chapter 30.

## 16.1.6. Building the Documentation

Building the PostgreSQL documentation in HTML format requires several tools and files. Create a root directory for all these files, and store them in the subdirectories in the list below.

OpenJade 1.3.1-2

  Download from http://sourceforge.net/projects/openjade/files/openjade/1.3.1/openjade-1_3_1-2-bin.zip/download and uncompress in the subdirectory `openjade-1.3.1`.

DocBook DTD 4.2

  Download from http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/sgml/4.2/docbook-4.2.zip and uncompress in the subdirectory `docbook`.

DocBook DSSSL 1.79

  Download from http://sourceforge.net/projects/docbook/files/docbook-dsssl/1.79/docbook-dsssl-1.79.zip/download and uncompress in the subdirectory `docbook-dsssl-1.79`.

ISO character entities

  Download from http://www.oasis-open.org/cover/ISOEnts.zip and uncompress in the subdirectory `docbook`.

Edit the `buildenv.pl` file, and add a variable for the location of the root directory, for example:

    $ENV{DOCROOT}='c:\docbook';

To build the documentation, run the command `builddoc.bat`. Note that this will actually run the build twice, in order to generate the indexes. The generated HTML files will be in `doc\src\sgml`.

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