Enabling PostgreSQL support in PHP on Mac OS X

The PHP version that comes bundled with OS X doesn't include PostgreSQL. You'll have to compile the extension yourself. Here are some instructions:

1. Find your version of PHP: php -v.
2. Download the version of PHP that matches yours: curl -O http://us.php.net/distributions/php-5.3.3.tar.gz. (This example downloads PHP 5.3.3 but this must match your version)
3. Extract the archive you downloaded: tar -xzvf php-5.3.3.tar.gz
4. Change to the PostgreSQL's extension directory: cd php-5.3.3/ext/pgsql/
5. Type phpize.
6. Type ./configure.
7. Type make.
8. Type sudo make install.
9. Add the extension to you php.ini file by adding extension=pgsql.so. (You may already have done this)
10. Restart Apache.

Update for OS X Mountain LionApple has removed autoconf from the newer versions of XCode so the procedure above will fail at #5. To solve that problem:

1. Type /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(/usr/bin/curl -fksSL https://raw.github.com/mxcl/homebrew/master/Library/Contributions/install_homebrew.rb)".
2. Type sudo chown -R $USER /usr/local/Cellar.
3. Type brew update.
4. Type brew install autoconf.

That should install autoconf and allow you to install the module using the instructions above.

If you use home brew, you can solve this with a command as simple as:

brew install php55-pdo-pgsql

for other php version, search with:

brew search pgsql

This worked for me with OSX 10.9.4 «Mavericks»

Install sources

Download the PHP source code. Unlike on Mountain Lion, you don’t get any headers preinstalled to link against so need to put it in /usr/include/php. Mavericks ships with PHP 5.4.17, but the latest 5.4.x source from php.net should do:

tar -jxvf php-5.4.20.tar.bz2sudo mkdir -p /usr/includesudo mv php-5.4.20 /usr/include/php

Configure PHP

cd /usr/include/php./configure --without-iconvsudo cp /etc/php.ini.default /etc/php.ini

Building a module

I needed the pdo_pgsql module - the same pattern should apply to just about any module assuming you have the necessary dependencies installed:

cd ext/pdo_pgsql

In my case I had the following error:

Cannot find autoconf. Please check your autoconf installation and the$PHP_AUTOCONF environment variable. Then, rerun this script. ERROR:`phpize' failed

So I had to use this command:

brew install autoconf

Then:

phpize

After that I tried to do:./configure

but I had the next problem:

checking for pg_config... not found configure: error: Cannot findlibpq-fe.h. Please specify correct PostgreSQL installation path

So the solution was to specify correct PostgreSQL installation path:

./configure --with-pdo-pgsql=/Library/PostgreSQL/9.3/makesudo make install

That copies pdo_pgsql.so to /usr/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20100525.

Then simply add

extension=pdo_pgsql.so to /etc/php.ini 

Run php -m to confirm everything went to plan.