pg_config — retrieve information about the installed version of PostgreSQL
pg_config
{[--bindir] | [--includedir] | [--includedir-server] | [--libdir] | [--pkglibdir] | [--pgxs] | [--configure] | [--version]...}
The pg_config utility prints configuration parameters of the currently installed version of PostgreSQL. It is intended, for example, to be used by software packages that want to interface to PostgreSQL to facilitate finding the required header files and libraries.
To use pg_config, supply one or more of the following options:
--bindir
Print the location of user executables. Use this, for example, to find
the psql
program. This is normally also the location
where the pg_config
program resides.
--includedir
Print the location of C header files of the client interfaces.
--includedir-server
Print the location of C header files for server programming.
--libdir
Print the location of object code libraries.
--pkglibdir
Print the location of dynamically loadable modules, or where the server would search for them. (Other architecture-dependent data files may also be installed in this directory.)
--pgxs
Print the location of extension makefiles.
--configure
Print the options that were given to the configure
script when PostgreSQL was configured for building.
This can be used to reproduce the identical configuration, or
to find out with what options a binary package was built. (Note
however that binary packages often contain vendor-specific custom
patches.)
--version
Print the version of PostgreSQL and exit.
If more than one option (except for --version
) is given, the
information is printed in that order, one item per line.
The option --includedir-server
was new in
PostgreSQL 7.2. In prior releases, the server include files were
installed in the same location as the client headers, which could
be queried with the option --includedir
. To make your
package handle both cases, try the newer option first and test the
exit status to see whether it succeeded.
In releases prior to PostgreSQL 7.1, before
pg_config
came to be, a method for finding the
equivalent configuration information did not exist.