[postgis-devel] PATH required on make check

[Greg Troxel]

Bruce Rindahl <bruce.rindahl at gmail.com> writes:

> That is the strange issue.  Postgresql is installed in the default
> location.  As is gdal, geos, and proj which were also built from source.

"default location" means different things to different people/programs.

Typically, ./configure with no prefix argument builds for /usr/local,
and this is broadly considered a default.   I always use pgsql via
pkgsrc, so the prefix is /usr/pkg, and whatever pgsql's build system
defaults to I don't encounter.  With an upstream default  of
/usr/local/pgsql (vs /usr/local), there's a need to add that to PATH,
and arguably the pgsql documentation should explain this.

> Postgis ./configure finds those three just fine but I have to set
> --with-pgconfig or it will error out saying unable to find pg_config.

Presumably gdal/geos/proj are built with an implicit prefix of
/usr/local, and thus gdal-config and geos-config are in /usr/local/bin,
and proj.pc is in /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/proj.pc.  With
/usr/local/bin in PATH, and /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig in pkg-config's
default search location, they will all be found.

It is not surprising to me that you have to pass --with-pgconfig if
/usr/local/pgsql/bin is not in PATH.  Perhaps if you added that to PATH
before building and testing, all would be ok.

> Then some of the tests seem to add the default path but some do not.

If you mean 'the default chosen by the pgsql build process', then I'm
not really surprised.  I think it's probably a bug to run anything postgis
without the pgsql's bin directory in PATH.  But another view is that
this directory should be stored in postgis machinery somewhow and
automatically added when needed.  I see the second approach as working
around not having done the straightforward thing, and too complicated.

A third view is that any calls to pgsql programs that are embedded in
postgis binaries/scripts should be fully qualified pathnames as found at
configure time, and this extends to all tests as well.   I support this
view - what bothers me is automatic mucking with PATH.

> OS is raspian which is a version of Debian stretch.

I suspect that your issues are about pgsql using /usr/local/pgsql and
not specifically about Pi or Debian.

I have Raspberry Pi 3 running NetBSD, and should run the postgis tests
on it some day.