Installing PostgreSQL 9.4 beta2 on Mac OS X 10.9.4 via MacPorts

After reading the blog post from EnterpriseDB about how Postgres Outperforms MongoDB, and because I have always preferred PostgreSQL to other databases, I had to check out the document handling capabilities that PostgreSQL has added recently.

Because I began using a newer computer this summer, I had not yet installed PostgreSQL. So I pulled up a previous post about installing PostgreSQL using MacPorts and did some searches to find the latest PostgreSQL. Below are the commands I ran.

First, I needed to figure out what the latest version of PostreSQL is in MacPorts:

	$ sudo port search postgresql | grep '^postgresql\d\d'
	postgresql80 @8.0.26 (databases)
	postgresql80-doc @8.0.26 (databases)
	postgresql80-server @8.0.26 (databases)
	postgresql81 @8.1.23 (databases)
	postgresql81-doc @8.1.23 (databases)
	postgresql81-server @8.1.23 (databases)
	postgresql82 @8.2.23 (databases)
	postgresql82-doc @8.2.23 (databases)
	postgresql82-server @8.2.23 (databases)
	postgresql83 @8.3.23 (databases)
	postgresql83-doc @8.3.23 (databases)
	postgresql83-server @8.3.23 (databases)
	postgresql84 @8.4.22 (databases)
	postgresql84-doc @8.4.22 (databases)
	postgresql84-server @8.4.22 (databases)
	postgresql90 @9.0.18 (databases)
	postgresql90-doc @9.0.18 (databases)
	postgresql90-server @9.0.18 (databases)
	postgresql91 @9.1.14 (databases)
	postgresql91-doc @9.1.14 (databases)
	postgresql91-server @9.1.14 (databases)
	postgresql92 @9.2.9 (databases)
	postgresql92-doc @9.2.9 (databases)
	postgresql92-server @9.2.9 (databases)
	postgresql93 @9.3.5 (databases)
	postgresql93-doc @9.3.5 (databases)
	postgresql93-server @9.3.5 (databases)
	postgresql94 @9.4beta2 (databases)
	postgresql94-doc @9.4beta2 (databases)
	postgresql94-server @9.4beta2 (databases)

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This allowed me to see that PostgreSQL 9.4 beta2 is the latest version supported by MacPorts. So I embarked upon an installation of this version:

$ sudo port install postgresql94 postgresql94-server postgresql94-doc

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This install went off without a hitch, so I created a directory for the database and initialized the database:

	$ sudo mkdir -p /opt/local/var/db/postgresql94/defaultdb
	$ sudo chown postgres:postgres /opt/local/var/db/postgresql94/defaultdb
	$ sudo su postgres -c '/opt/local/lib/postgresql94/bin/initdb -D /opt/local/var/db/postgresql94/defaultdb'

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From the ouptput of the installation, I copy/pasted the startup command and sent it to a file. I did the same for both the start and stop commands so that I have scripts to start and stop PG quickly:

	$ printf '%s\n\n%s' '#!/bin/bash' 'su postgres -c "/opt/local/lib/postgresql94/bin/pg_ctl -D /opt/local/var/db/postgresql94/defaultdb -l /opt/local/var/db/postgresql94/defaultdb/postgresql.log start"' > ~/bin/pg_start.sh
	$ chmod +x ~/bin/pg_start.sh
	$ printf '%s\n\n%s' '#!/bin/bash' 'sudo su postgres -c "/opt/local/lib/postgresql94/bin/pg_ctl -D /opt/local/var/db/postgresql94/defaultdb stop"' > ~/bin/pg_stop.sh
	$ chmod +x ~/bin/pg_stop.sh

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After starting up PG for the first time, I opened another terminal in another tab to watch the log file to see if the database was started correctly:

$ sudo tail -f /opt/local/var/db/postgresql94/defaultdb/postgresql.log

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Then I pulled up the docs via the local install of them (file:///opt/local/share/doc/postgresql94/html/index.html) and started digging into the document database support to play around.