I tried using gem install pg but it doesn't seem to work.

gem install pg gives this error

Temporarily enhancing PATH to include DevKit...
Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
ERROR:  Error installing pg:
        ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

C:/Ruby/bin/ruby.exe extconf.rb
checking for pg_config... no
No pg_config... trying anyway. If building fails, please try again with
 --with-pg-config=/path/to/pg_config
checking for libpq-fe.h... no
Can't find the 'libpq-fe.h header
*** extconf.rb failed ***
Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of
necessary libraries and/or headers.  Check the mkmf.log file for more
details.  You may need configuration options.

Provided configuration options:
        --with-opt-dir
        --without-opt-dir
        --with-opt-include
        --without-opt-include=${opt-dir}/include
        --with-opt-lib
        --without-opt-lib=${opt-dir}/lib
        --with-make-prog
        --without-make-prog
        --srcdir=.
        --curdir
        --ruby=C:/Ruby/bin/ruby
        --with-pg
        --without-pg
        --with-pg-dir
        --without-pg-dir
        --with-pg-include
        --without-pg-include=${pg-dir}/include
        --with-pg-lib
        --without-pg-lib=${pg-dir}/lib
        --with-pg-config
        --without-pg-config
        --with-pg_config
        --without-pg_config


Gem files will remain installed in C:/Ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/pg-0.10.1 for
inspection.
Results logged to C:/Ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/pg-0.10.1/ext/gem_make.out

I had this problem, this worked for me:

Install the postgresql-devel package, this will solve the issue of pg_config missing.

sudo apt-get install libpq-dev

Issue is gem dependency so before installing pg make sure you have installed "libpq-dev"

Ubuntu systems:

sudo apt-get install libpq-dev

RHEL systems:

yum install postgresql-devel

Mac:

brew install postgresql


gem install pg -- --with-pg-config=/usr/pgsql-9.1/bin/pg_config


@Winfield said it:

The pg gem requires the postgresql client libraries to bind against. This error usually means it can't find your Postgres libraries. Either you don't have them installed or you may need to pass the --with-pg-dir= to your gem install.

More than that, you only need --with-pg-config= to install it.

On a Mac

If, by any chance, you also installed postgres through the website bundle on mac, it will be on somewhere like /Applications/Postgres.app/Contents/Versions/9.3/bin.

So, either you pass it on the gem install:

gem install pg -- --with-pg-config=/Applications/Postgres.app/Contents/Versions/9.3/bin/pg_config

Or you set the PATH properly. Since that might be too much, to temporarily set the PATH:

export PATH=%PATH:/Applications/Postgres.app/Contents/Versions/9.3/bin/