Preface

There are several ways of building PostgreSQL under Windows. Official manual stands using Visual Studio is the simplest one, wiki describes how to use mingw and mingw-w64.

As for me, using new MSYS2 building platform for Windows is a bless. With its help not only PostgreSQL sources are built smoothly, but even extensions are not a problem anymore. And if you were playing with extensions under Windows, you know what I’m talking about.

At its core MSYS2 is an independent rewrite of MSYS, based on modern Cygwin (POSIX compatibility layer) and MinGW-w64 with the aim of better interoperability with native Windows software. It provides a bash shell, Autotools, revision control systems and the like for building native Windows applications using MinGW-w64 toolchains.

Installation

It is pretty straightforward. On the official page you have the step-by-step guide, but in case of troubles, you may check detailed install guide.

After installation and upgrading run in cmd console

C:\msys64\msys2_shell.cmd -mingw64

or simply just click on the Start menu “MSYS2 MinGW 64-bit” shortcut:

Then update packages:

pacman -Syu

Install only needed packages:

pacman --needed -S git mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc base-devel

Let’s build it!

Get the PostgreSQL sources. Here you have two options:
1. Download them from the official site.
2. Use git repository:

git clone git://git.postgresql.org/git/postgresql.git

Enter to the source folder:

cd postgresql

And run configure followed by make and make install:

./configure --host=x86_64-w64-mingw32 --prefix=/c/pgsql/ && make && make install

Here we tell our target machine will be 64-bit and we want our binaries to be copied to C:\pgsql\.

Conclusion

As you may see building PostgreSQL with MSYS2 for Windows is simple enough. But the main profit of such toolchain is building extensions for PostgreSQL. And there it shines in all its glory. Stay tuned.