Re: Beginner question: Hacking environment?

Adrian von Bidder <avbidder(at)fortytwo(dot)ch> writes:
> Thanks for all your answers. I was just a bit confused because when I write
> stuff for myself I usually set up stuff to run directly in the build
> environment, so I was expecting something like that to be available. But
> make install into ~/pg will do fine as well. (I want to avoid having my
> trashed version version be available systemwide...)

No, nobody installs test versions into "real" locations. What you want
is to set an install spot with configure --prefix. For instance, I
usually do
configure --prefix=/home/tgl/testversion --enable-debug --enable-cassert
Be sure to add $PREFIX/bin to your PATH so that you can call the
test-installation programs conveniently.

It's also often a good idea to specify a non-default port number using
--with-pgport so that you can run your test postmaster concurrently with
a regular one.

Lastly, setting PGDATA in your environment to a suitable test database
location will save typing and avoid mistakes.

As Peter mentioned, most of us have scripts to set up a preferred
working environment of this sort. I think I've published mine at least
once ... check the archives.

regards, tom lane