# Setting up RoR with Postgresql ---heeellpp! **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [September 13, 2008, 2:09am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/setting-up-ror-with-postgresql-heeellpp/148466 "2008-09-13T02:09:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dragonslayre](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/da6949/32.png) [@dragonslayre](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dragonslayre)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 2:09am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/setting-up-ror-with-postgresql-heeellpp/148466/1 "2008-09-13T02:09:50Z")
Hi there, I’ve been trying for a few hours now to get RoR and postgresql talking - but I’m very confused about what’s going on (I’m running windows btw). I haven’t created a database in postgresql (I’m assuming that RoR will do that?) my database.yml looks like this: production: adapter: ruby-postgres database: rails\_production username: postgres password: myPassword test: adapter: ruby-postgres database: rails\_test username: postgres password: myPassword development: adapter: ruby-postgres database: rails\_development username: postgres password: myPassword When I created my rails app, I put a flag -d postgresql I have installed different database adapters (ruby-postgres, activerecord-jdbcpostgresql-adapter, postgres-pr). I’ve tried writing adapter: postgresql in the .yml file. But when I try to run the server (ruby script/server), I get the following error msg: G:/program files/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.1.1/lib/active\_recor d/connection\_adapters/abstract/connection\_specification.rb:232:in `establish_con nection': Please install the postgresql adapter:`gem install activerecord-postg resql-adapter` (no such file to load – pg) (RuntimeError) I try what this msg says, but it doesn’t work, it just says this: G:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\htdocs\test\>gem install ac tiverecord-postgresql-adapter ERROR: could not find gem activerecord-postgresql-adapter locally or in a repos itory I’m guessing that RoR has a postgresql database driver installed, and that the gems are acting as database adapters? Any help you can give me will be soooo appreciated - I’m really keen to learn RoR, but it’s these little things(Installation) that are holding me back. Thanks, Louis ---
**Author:** ![dragonslayre](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/da6949/32.png) [@dragonslayre](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dragonslayre)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 12:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/setting-up-ror-with-postgresql-heeellpp/148466/2 "2008-09-13T12:23:07Z")
Louis I use postgres with rails and I’ll give you some tips rails doesn’t create databases for you out of the box (as far as I know.) You need to create the databases yourself, or write some code in your app to create them for you. Installing the postgres driver on windows is tricky. There exists no actively supported driver for windows. The ruby-pg project doesn’t build on windows (at least not reasonably easily), ruby-postgres is inactive. postgres-pr compatibility was broken recently in edge rails and is unlikely to ever be restored as postgres-pr is inactive. If you are using rails installed via rubygems, you can install postgres-pr but at some future release of rails this will fail. To install it do: gem install postgres-pr If it still complains after that do: gem install postgres Then you should be set… for now. That is probably the best way to start, but eventually you will want to be using ruby-postgres instead. The trick to getting that driver working is to copy 2 dll files to your c:\ruby\bin folder from your C:\program files\posgresql\lib folder. I think these 2 files are libeay32.dll and ssleay32.dll If those aren’t the correct files, there are several blog articles out there that mention which dll’s have to be copied over. I can tell you from personal experience that using postgresql with rails is a major pain in the ass. I’ve found so many nasty bugs involving posgresql in activerecord. It sounds as if you don’t know what you’re doing at all yet, in which case I’d advise just using mysql instead until you’re more comfortable. Do you have a good reason for using postgresql? Miles On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 5:09 PM, Lou Mann ---
**Author:** ![dragonslayre](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/da6949/32.png) [@dragonslayre](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dragonslayre)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 3:59pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/setting-up-ror-with-postgresql-heeellpp/148466/3 "2008-09-13T15:59:47Z")
I’m curious if you can be more detailed on the bugs you’ve found with ActiveRecord involving PostgreSQL. I’ve used PostgreSQL with Rails for several projects and have had only 1 problem relating to using “infinity” with timestamps that was in fact rather easy to work around. I’ve used ActiveRecord’s finders, find\_by\_sql, and even direct SQL execution and retrieving results from all of those. Jim Crate Que Viva Development, LLC ---
**Author:** ![dragonslayre](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/da6949/32.png) [@dragonslayre](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dragonslayre)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 10:28pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/setting-up-ror-with-postgresql-heeellpp/148466/4 "2008-09-13T22:28:50Z")
Jim, here’s the bugs I’ve reported to [rails.lighthouseapp.com](http://rails.lighthouseapp.com) [http://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994/tickets/611-cannot-write-certain-binary-data-to-postgresql-bytea-columns-in-2-1-0](http://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994/tickets/611-cannot-write-certain-binary-data-to-postgresql-bytea-columns-in-2-1-0) [http://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994/tickets/861-fix-for-a-transaction-problem-with-change\_column-on-postgresql-if-bad-arguments-passed-in](http://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994/tickets/861-fix-for-a-transaction-problem-with-change_column-on-postgresql-if-bad-arguments-passed-in) [http://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994/tickets/771-postgresql-8-3-doesn-t-like-single-quoted-role-names-in-the-owner-clause](http://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994/tickets/771-postgresql-8-3-doesn-t-like-single-quoted-role-names-in-the-owner-clause) [http://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994/tickets/988-is-postgres-pr-driver-no-longer-supported-problem-with-new-transaction\_active-method](http://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994/tickets/988-is-postgres-pr-driver-no-longer-supported-problem-with-new-transaction_active-method) All of these cost me valuable hours of my time, and there’s been some postgresql related bugs I haven’t bothered to report and am too lazy to go find my monkey patches and modifications to my local rails repository to list them. There’s been periods of time where I’ve spent more of my time debugging activerecord code than working on my projects. ---
**Author:** ![dragonslayre](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/da6949/32.png) [@dragonslayre](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dragonslayre)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2008, 10:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/setting-up-ror-with-postgresql-heeellpp/148466/5 "2008-09-14T22:51:31Z")
Miles G. wrote: > That is probably the best way to start, but eventually you will want > to be using ruby-postgres instead. The trick to getting that driver > working is to copy 2 dll files to your c:\ruby\bin folder from your > C:\program files\posgresql\lib folder. I think these 2 files are > libeay32.dll and ssleay32.dll > > If those aren’t the correct files, there are several blog articles out > there that mention which dll’s have to be copied over. Yeah - can’t see those dll’s. Anyway, I’m using netbeans now for Ruby on rails - it found postgresql ok, so I don’t know what it’s doing that I can’t! I’m happy to use netbeans for now. Thanks for your help