Thread: regression tests require some file(s) to be installed first.

The following documentation comment has been logged on the website:

Page: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/14/install-procedure.html
Description:

This might be a documentation issue, and it might be an actual issue, I'm
not sure.

I was following the installation instructions from the
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/install-procedure.html

I used all of the defaults and steps 1 and 2 looked good, but when tried to
run the regression tests in step 3, the database failed to load with the
following error in
"/Users/bfraser/tools/postgresql-14.5/src/test/regress/log/initdb.log":

=====
dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/local/pgsql/lib/libpq.5.dylib
  Referenced from:
/Users/bfraser/tools/postgresql-14.5/tmp_install/usr/local/pgsql/bin/initdb
  Reason: image not found
======

Based on the way to documentation reads currently, I'm thinking that the
regression tests shouldn't depend on (and, if fact shouldn't even be looking
at) any files in "/usr/local".

After I ran step 4 (make install), the regression test worked perfectly.

Run on MacOS 11.4, GNU Make 3.81

PG Doc comments form <noreply@postgresql.org> writes:
> I used all of the defaults and steps 1 and 2 looked good, but when tried to
> run the regression tests in step 3, the database failed to load with the
> following error in
> "/Users/bfraser/tools/postgresql-14.5/src/test/regress/log/initdb.log":
> dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/local/pgsql/lib/libpq.5.dylib

> After I ran step 4 (make install), the regression test worked perfectly.

Yeah, thanks to some dubious "security" restrictions in macOS,
make check doesn't work unless you first do make install.
(Basically, they've lobotomized DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH, so that
the executables will only look for libraries in the configured
installation library directory :-(.  It's far from clear to me
why that's of any security value when they still let you change
PATH, but I don't work there.)

This is documented in the macOS-specific installation notes.

            regards, tom lane