18.1. Building with Visual C++ or the Microsoft Windows SDK

18.1. Building with Visual C++ or the + Microsoft Windows SDK
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18.1. Building with Visual C++ or the + Microsoft Windows SDK

18.1.1. Requirements
18.1.2. Special Considerations for 64-Bit Windows
18.1.3. Building
18.1.4. Cleaning and Installing
18.1.5. Running the Regression Tests

+ 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 + ways are to use the compilers from + Visual Studio 2022 or those in the + Windows SDK 10, which are both free downloads + from Microsoft. +

+ Both 32-bit and 64-bit builds are possible with the Microsoft Compiler suite. + 32-bit PostgreSQL builds are possible with + Visual Studio 2013 to + Visual Studio 2022, + as well as standalone Windows SDK releases 8.1a to 10. + 64-bit PostgreSQL builds are supported with + Microsoft Windows SDK version 8.1a to 10 or + Visual Studio 2013 and above. Compilation + is supported down to Windows 7 and + Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 when building with + Visual Studio 2013 to + Visual Studio 2022. + +

+ The tools for building using Visual C++ or + Platform SDK 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. + Starting with Visual Studio 2017 this can be + done from the command line using VsDevCmd.bat, see + -help for the available options and their default values. + vsvars32.bat is available in + Visual Studio 2015 and earlier versions for the + same purpose. + From the Visual Studio Command Prompt, you can + change the targeted CPU architecture, build type, and target OS by using the + vcvarsall.bat command, e.g., + vcvarsall.bat x64 10.0.10240.0 to target Windows 10 + with a 64-bit release build. See -help for the other + options of vcvarsall.bat. All commands should be run from + the src\tools\msvc directory. +

+ Before you build, you can create 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:\python310';
+

+ 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';
+

+ To pass additional command line arguments to the Visual Studio build + command (msbuild or vcbuild): +

+$ENV{MSBFLAGS}="/m";
+

18.1.1. 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

+ If your build environment doesn't ship with a supported version of the + Microsoft Windows SDK it + is recommended that you upgrade to the latest version (currently + version 10), available for download from + https://www.microsoft.com/download. +

+ You must always include the + Windows Headers and Libraries part of the SDK. + If you install a Windows SDK + including the Visual C++ Compilers, + you don't need Visual Studio to build. + Note that as of Version 8.0a the Windows SDK no longer ships with a + complete command-line build environment. +

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 + https://www.activestate.com + (Note: version 5.8.3 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. Only Bison 1.875 or versions 2.2 and later + will work. Flex must be version 2.5.31 or later. +

+ Both Bison and Flex + are included in the msys tool suite, available + from http://www.mingw.org/wiki/MSYS as part of the + MinGW compiler suite. +

+ You will need to add the directory containing + flex.exe and bison.exe to the + PATH environment variable in buildenv.pl unless + they are already in PATH. In the case of MinGW, the directory is the + \msys\1.0\bin subdirectory of your MinGW + installation 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 or use the + NTFS short name path to GnuWin32 in your PATH environment setting + (e.g., C:\PROGRA~1\GnuWin32). +

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 GSSAPI authentication support. MIT Kerberos can be + downloaded from + https://web.mit.edu/Kerberos/dist/index.html. +

libxml2 and + libxslt

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

LZ4

+ Required for supporting LZ4 compression. + Binaries and source can be downloaded from + https://github.com/lz4/lz4/releases. +

Zstandard

+ Required for supporting Zstandard compression. + Binaries and source can be downloaded from + https://github.com/facebook/zstd/releases. +

OpenSSL

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

zlib

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

18.1.2. 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. +

18.1.3. 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. +

18.1.4. 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
+

+ If you want to install only the client applications and + interface libraries, then you can use these commands: +

+install c:\destination\directory client
+

18.1.5. 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
+vcregress modulescheck
+vcregress ecpgcheck
+vcregress isolationcheck
+vcregress bincheck
+vcregress recoverycheck
+vcregress taptest
+

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

+vcregress check serial
+

+ + vcregress taptest can be used to run the TAP tests + of a target directory, like: +

+vcregress taptest src\bin\initdb\
+

+ + For more information about the regression tests, see + Chapter 33. +

+ Running the regression tests on client programs with + vcregress bincheck, on recovery tests with + vcregress recoverycheck, or TAP tests specified with + vcregress taptest requires an additional Perl module + to be installed: +

IPC::Run

+ As of this writing, IPC::Run is not included in the + ActiveState Perl installation, nor in the ActiveState Perl Package + Manager (PPM) library. To install, download the + IPC-Run-<version>.tar.gz source archive from CPAN, + at https://metacpan.org/release/IPC-Run, and + uncompress. Edit the buildenv.pl file, and add a PERL5LIB + variable to point to the lib subdirectory from the + extracted archive. For example: +

+$ENV{PERL5LIB}=$ENV{PERL5LIB} . ';c:\IPC-Run-0.94\lib';
+

+ The TAP tests run with vcregress support the + environment variables PROVE_TESTS, that is expanded + automatically using the name patterns given, and + PROVE_FLAGS. These can be set on a Windows terminal, + before running vcregress: +

+set PROVE_FLAGS=--timer --jobs 2
+set PROVE_TESTS=t/020*.pl t/010*.pl
+

+ It is also possible to set up those parameters in + buildenv.pl: +

+$ENV{PROVE_FLAGS}='--timer --jobs 2'
+$ENV{PROVE_TESTS}='t/020*.pl t/010*.pl'
+

+ Some of the TAP tests depend on a set of external commands that would + optionally trigger tests related to them. Each one of those variables + can be set or unset in buildenv.pl: +

GZIP_PROGRAM: + Path to a gzip command. The default is + gzip, which will search for a command by that + name in the configured PATH. +
LZ4: + Path to a lz4 command. The default is + lz4, which will search for a command by that + name in the configured PATH. +
TAR: + Path to a tar command. The default is + tar, which will search for a command by that + name in the configured PATH. +
ZSTD: + Path to a zstd command. The default is + zstd, which will search for a command by that + name in the configured PATH. +