Setup your pgvectorscale developer environment

Setup your pgvectorscale developer environment

You build pgvectorscale from source, then integrate the extension into each database in your PostgreSQL environment.

pgvectorscale prerequisites

To create a pgvectorscale developer environment, you need the following on your local machine:

• PostgreSQL v16

• pgvector

• Development packages:

  sudo apt-get install make gcc pkg-config clang postgresql-server-dev-16 libssl-dev

• Rust:

  curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

Build and install pgvectorscale on your database

1. In Terminal, clone this repository and switch to the extension subdirectory:

   git clone https://github.com/timescale/pgvectorscale && \
   cd pgvectorscale/pgvectorscale

2. Install Cargo-pgrx:

   cargo install --locked cargo-pgrx --version $(cargo metadata --format-version 1 | jq -r '.packages[] | select(.name == "pgrx") | .version')

   You must reinstall cargo-pgrx whenever you update Rust, cargo-pgrx must be built with the same compiler as pgvectorscale.

3. Initialize the pgrx development environment:

cargo pgrx init --pg16 pg_config

1. Build pgvectorscale:

   cargo pgrx install --release

   If the destination folder requires elevated permissions, use the --sudo flag:

   cargo pgrx install --sudo --release

2. Connect to the database:

   psql -d "postgres://<username>@<password>:<port>/<database-name>"

3. Add pgvectorscale to your database:

   CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS vectorscale CASCADE;

Troubleshooting

MacOS: fatal error: ‘stdio.h’ file not found

Make sure you have the command line tools:

xcode-select --install

If the error persists try setting explicitly the SDKROOT environment variable:

export SDKROOT=$(xcrun --sdk macosx --show-sdk-path)

Make sure the variable was set:

$ env | grep SDKROOT
SDKROOT=/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk

Permission denied while installing the extension artifacts

If the PostgreSQL directory where the extension needs to be installed requires elevated permissions (for example, when using MacOS PostgreSQL that installs in the /Applications folder, or when installing from a package manager that uses a system directory), you need to use the pgrx --sudo flag:

cargo pgrx install --sudo --release