Postgres Installation on mac

Download  postgresql-8.4.7.tar.gz from http://www.postgresql.org/ftp/source/v8.4.7/

Follow the below instructions to extract, install and configure "Postgres"

#tar -xvfz postgresql-8.4.7.tar.gz

#cd  postgresql-8.4.7

$./configure

$make 

$make install

Create postgres account(System Preferences->Accounts->new User->postgres)

$su -

imac:~ root#mkdir /usr/local/pgsql/data
imac:~ root#chown postgres /usr/local/pgsql/data
imac:~ root#su -l postgres
imac:~ postgres$/usr/local/pgsql/bin/initdb -D /usr/local/pgsql/data

The above command will take the default encoding SQL_ASCII

If you want to select different encoding use:

/usr/local/pgsql/bin/initdb -E UTF8 /usr/local/pgsql/data

set the path using:

imac:~ postgres$ export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/pgsql/bin

starting the postgres using:

imac:~ postgres$ /usr/local/pgsql/bin/pg_ctl -D /usr/local/pgsql/data -l /usr/local/pgsql/data/logfile start

stopping the postgres using:

imac:~ postgres$ /usr/local/pgsql/bin/pg_ctl stop -D /usr/local/pgsql/data 

Using Postgres command line shell

Starting Postgres Interpreter Shell

• SU to user 'postgres' (see above)
• $ psql test              (test is name of database you want to connect to)

// Quit shell

test=> \q

// import sql file
test=> \i basics.sql

// list databases
test=> \l

// 'use' database test
test=> \c test

// List tables in current dbms
test=> \d

// Show table structure
test=> \d tablename