Postgresql adapter not working

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hello everyone. I'm starting with Rails going through the obvious "Getting Started with Rails" guide:

Everything goes smoothly until the rake db:create command, which returns this strange error message referring to a gem that apparently doesn't exist:

Please install the postgresql adapter: `gem install activerecord- postgresql-adapter` (pg is not part of the bundle. Add it to Gemfile.)

I am trying to connect to a remote postgres server with the following contents in database.yml:

common: &common   adapter: postgresql   host: the_server   database: my_db   encoding: unicode   pool: 5   timeout: 5000   username: me   password: mypass

development:   <<: *common

test:   <<: *common

production:   <<: *common

Which only adds the host line to what is shown in the tutorial.

After confirming that the pg gem is installed I tried two things: first install the libdbd-pg-ruby package for Ubuntu, and then replaced the pg gem for postgres-pr, as suggested here:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3347537/please-install-the-postgresql-adapter-gem-install-activerecord-postgresql-adapt

Neither of these actions changed matters, the error remains. What else can I do to trace this problem?

Thank you,

Luís

2

Hello again,

Browsing a bit more I stumbled on a suggestion to install yet another gem: postgres. This gem doesn’t even install:

$ gem install postgres Fetching: postgres-0.7.9.2008.01.28.gem (100%) Building native extensions. This could take a while… ERROR: Error installing postgres: ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

    /home/desousa/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/bin/ruby extconf.rb

extconf.rb:4:in `': uninitialized constant Object::PLATFORM (NameError)

Gem files will remain installed in /home/desousa/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/postgres-0.7.9.2008.01.28 for inspection. Results logged to /home/desousa/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/postgres-0.7.9.2008.01.28/ext/gem_make.out

What’s the issue with this particular gem?

So far I tried 3 different gems for postgres adapter, each recommended at different places on the web. Is there an “official” Rails gem for postgres? Or an “official” adapter install guide?

Thank you,

Luís

3

Hello again,

I managed to get rake db:create to work, it requires the creation of an application with the -d postgresql argument. Nevertheless, it throws a strange message saying that the database already exists. I will move onwards with the tutorial to see if it really works.

I think this issue should be made clear on the tutorial; some basic guidelines on which adapter to use could also be helpful.

Thank you,

Luís

4

I read you use Ubuntu (am I correct ?).

When googling for “install ruby on rails ubuntu”

  • the first entry points to a page on help.ubuntu.com that talks about 8.04 and 9.04

  • the second entry points to a very short description help.ubuntu.com

  • the third page points to a broken page on http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/

  • and then we get into private blogs, which may be OK, but are less authorative

I would volunteer to make a proper write-up for Ruby and Rails on Ubuntu 10.04

and/or 11.10 with rvm, ruby 1.9.(2|3), postgresql, etc.

Particularly I would also make clear which extra -dev Debian packages are needed

for native compilation when starting from a vanilla Ubuntu (32 bit x86) client machine

install.

That could be similar in style to what I did on my blog for Jaunty (9.04) a few years ago

http://vandenabeele.com/Rails-on-Ubuntu-Jaunty

My goal is to put a correct how-to in the place that is most easily found by newcomers

that are working on Ubuntu.

Maybe most efficient would be to update the number 1 hit that is the Ubuntu help Wiki.

Would this be useful, or is this problem solved and did I just not find the correct

pointers by googling? (in that case, I could update the wiki to point there or copy

the correct description on the Ubuntu help Wiki).

Thanks for your feedback,

Peter

5

tl;dr https://gist.github.com/1261571

At Gaslight Software, we are helping a group at a local high school develop a simple web application and have exactly this same situation.

We went with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, Ruby 1.9.2, Rails 3.1, and PostgreSQL, but the steps should be the same.

Configuring Ubuntu 10.04 for Rails Development

http://blog.gaslightsoftware.com/post/11027905735/configuring-ubuntu-10-04-for-rails-development

Our time is limited with them so we’re only sure that everything gets installed, but we’ve gotten six ubuntu workstations configured and next week should actually spin up a demo rails app.

-Rob

Rob Biedenharn

Rob@AgileConsultingLLC.com http://AgileConsultingLLC.com/

rab@GaslightSoftware.com http://GaslightSoftware.com/

6

I managed to get rake db:create to work, it requires the creation of an application with the -d postgresql argument. Nevertheless, it throws a strange message saying that the database already exists. I will move onwards with the tutorial to see if it really works.

Yes: to create a postgresql based application, you need to use the "-d postgresql" argument, if you forgot it, just open the Gemfile and add the instruction "gem 'pg'" instead of "gem 'sqlite3'" and update the bundle with the command-line "bundle update".

I'm using postgresql 9.1 on ubuntu 11.04 with rails 3.1, and everything's good for me.

HTH, Maz.

7

Oh and, don't forget to install the 'pg' gem with the command-line "gem install 'pg'".

You should install PgAdmin 3 to manage your database with an user interface. It's very helpfull to see if you database is already created or some other few issues...

8

Hi Peter,

That not exactly the same issue, I'd say an authoritative install guide for Ubuntu is definitely needed, especially since a direct install from the repositories won't work.

I used this guide which got Rails and Ruby to work on Ubuntu 10.10 64- bit:

http://ryanbigg.com/2010/12/ubuntu-ruby-rvm-rails-and-you/

Though it installed the pg adapter instead of the postgres-pr gem.

Luís

9

That seems useful, Thank you Bob.

Luís

10

One can only forget things one has learned in the past. I'll stick to postgres-pr for now, it is recommended in several places on the web and so far seems to work without trouble.

Luís