Solved: Installing pg gem in Arch Linux libpq-fe.h

Written by
Date: 2012-05-25 09:48:00 00:00


Trying to install some gem apps today. I run into this issue on my Arch Linux server.

the pg gem was needed and failed to install with this message:

Installing pg (0.13.2) with native extensions 
Gem::Installer::ExtensionBuildError: ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

    /usr/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=/usr/bin/ruby
--with-pg
--without-pg
--with-pg-dir
--without-pg-dir
--with-pg-include
--without-pg-include=${pg-dir}/include
--with-pg-lib
--without-pg-lib=${pg-dir}/lib
--with-pg-config
--without-pg-config
--with-pg_config
--without-pg_config

	
Gem files will remain installed in /home/ggarron/.bundler/tmp/19290/gems/pg-0.13.2 for inspection.
Results logged to /home/ggarron/.bundler/tmp/19290/gems/pg-0.13.2/ext/gem_make.out
An error occured while installing pg (0.13.2), and Bundler cannot continue.
Make sure that `gem install pg -v '0.13.2'` succeeds before bundling.

When I checked the logs, this was in there:

/usr/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=/usr/bin/ruby
--with-pg
--without-pg
--with-pg-dir
--without-pg-dir
--with-pg-include
--without-pg-include=${pg-dir}/include
--with-pg-lib
--without-pg-lib=${pg-dir}/lib
--with-pg-config
--without-pg-config
--with-pg_config
--without-pg_config

The main problem you could see there is: Can't find the 'libpq-fe.h header

Let's see the solution:

pacman -S postgresql-libs

After that everything should work. Hope this helps you.