psycopg2 on OSX not pip installing

Question

There are a few problems asked about installing psycopg2 on OSX.

Like:

• Error with library
• Error with compiler
• Import error with library
• Missing pg_conf

After sorting out pg_conf still stuck with library not found for -lssl

On:

• OSX
• M1 Mac
• Python 3.9

Answer 1

After finding this solution, was able to make it work without needing the whole of postgres installed, by using brew.

Sadly zlib or openssl are not explained in the install requirements for psycopg2

Verified with:

• OSX: Monterey 12.4
• Python: 3.9.13
• pip: 22.1.2
• psycopg2: 2.8.5

Steps:

• Install libpq: brew install libpq

• Add to path, so pg_conf is found, eg:

  export PATH=/opt/homebrew/opt/libpq/bin:$PATH
  

• Install openssl: brew install openssl

• Add to library paths, eg:

  export LDFLAGS="-L/opt/homebrew/opt/openssl@3/lib"
  export CPPFLAGS="-I/opt/homebrew/opt/openssl@3/include"
  

• pip install psycopg2==2.8.5