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I have installed PostGIS on the mac using the binaries available on http://www.kyngchaos.com/software:postgres

Postgres v 9.1.3

PostGIS v 2.0

After that I want to enable postgis for my database. I tried using CREATE EXTENSION query. But it error'ed out saying that the extension is not available. I then tried 

sudo -u postgres psql -d [your database] -f /usr/local/pgsql/share/contrib/postgis-2.0/postgis.sql
Password: 
SET
BEGIN
psql:/usr/local/pgsql/share/contrib/postgis-2.0/postgis.sql:69: ERROR:  could not access file "$libdir/postgis-2.0": No such file or directory

How can i make $libdir expand into the path which i found by executing

$ pg_config --pkglibdir
/usr/lib/postgresql

The /usr/lib/postgresql does NOT contain postgis-2.0.

Digging around for a few more hours I found a hacky solution:

export PATH=/usr/local/pgsql/bin:$PATH

This makes the pg_config magically change to:

$ pg_config --pkglibdir
/usr/local/pgsql-9.1/lib

And then I hardcode that path into the postgis.sql file. But I want to know why $libdir doesnt resolve automatically.

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  • I have exactly the same problem. Please could you explain how you hard-coded the path in the postgis.sql file? – Richard May 25 '12 at 14:56
  • I just did manual find and replace all of $libdir with the path specified by pg_config --pkglibdir – Karan May 25 '12 at 23:44
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When you run psql, you're probably running the binary that's installed on OSX by default in /usr/bin. Run 'which psql' to be sure. Altering your $PATH like that changes which pg_config you're using. That's not a hacky solution to change your $PATH like that, it's perfectly OK. I recommend installing Postgres and PostGIS using homebrew though.

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  • Thanks for the reply. But even after modifying the path I had to hardcode the corresponding libdir in the sql file. $libdir still remained unresolved. Do you know why? – Karan Apr 29 '12 at 7:13
  • Are you sure the correct version of postgres is running? You can check which executable is running with ps aux | grep post. Make sure the postgres process that's running is the one you want (i.e. somewhere in /usr/local/pgsql-9.1). – zhm Apr 30 '12 at 3:26
  • I have the same issue as @KaranK. I installed via homebrew. which pg_config and which psql both show /usr/local/bin version. Additionally pg_config tells me LIBDIR = /usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.1.4/lib PKGLIBDIR = /usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.1.4/lib ...yet I still have to hard-code that exact value into postgis.sql in place of $libdir before the script will run! – Anentropic Jul 28 '12 at 22:43
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I get the same error after updating postgres with a working postgis install. Although this does not answer the original question, I'm adding this answer since the error is the same. The postgis .so files will not be in the postgres package directory (pg_config --pkglibdir) after a new postgres install. These files need to be there:

$ ls -l /usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.2.3/lib | grep postgis
-rwxr-xr-x  1 tee  wheel   585416 Feb 24 14:39 postgis-2.0.so
-rwxr-xr-x  1 tee  wheel   434752 Feb 24 14:39 rtpostgis-2.0.so

The simplest solution is to reinstall postgis after a postgres update:

brew uninstall postgis
brew install postgis
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