[FIXED] psycopg2-binary installation into a virtual environment fails when trying to compile source code

Issue

I am trying to install psycopg2-binary into my Django project. I am using a virtual environment and the command I'm running is

pip install psycopg2-binary

However, I'm getting a massive error message, the gist of it is this:

    Error: pg_config executable not found.

    pg_config is required to build psycopg2 from source.  Please add the directory
    containing pg_config to the $PATH or specify the full executable path with the
    option:

    python setup.py build_ext --pg-config /path/to/pg_config build ...

    or with the pg_config option in 'setup.cfg'.

    If you prefer to avoid building psycopg2 from source, please install the PyPI
    'psycopg2-binary' package instead.

But, hey, I'm installing exactly 'psycopg2-binary'

Why am I getting all this mess?

Solution

Pip cannot find you processor+OS at https://pypi.org/project/psycopg2-binary/2.9.2/#files so it tried to install from sources (the last file at the page) and failed.

Compiling from sources is currently the only way. If you can donate some spare processor cycles to the Psycopg2 authors they perhaps could start compiling and publishing wheels for OSX on M1.

Answered By - phd