I’m on a Macbook Pro 2023 with an M3 chip. I’ve been attempting to get Poco (and all of its library files) as well as libpq to be properly located by Clang while using a Makefile. All my attempts have failed. I know the Makefile is correct, as colleagues have been able to compile with it no problem on linux based systems.

I’ve installed both libraries (Poco and libpq) both through homebrew and vcpkg, as well as postgres libraries (through homebrew) and attempted several ways to create ways for clang to locate these files. I’ve found a way for Poco to be located, but not libpq/postgres. Additionally, from what I’ve read online, homebrew does not automatically put these files where they should be on Apple silicon, but will on Intel silicon.

I also have an issue with the linker and libpq as well, such that after being installed, and having found a work around (I do not want to use) it fails as well with the following output:

ld: library 'pq' not found
clang: error: linker command failed with exit code 1 (use -v to see invocation)

1. For Poco, I was able to create a symbolic link in /usr/local/include to ~/vcpkg/packages/poco_arm64-osx/include/Poco which locates the Poco libraries successfully.

2. I attempted the same process for postgres and libpq (independently, they were never in /usr/local/include together at the same time), but clang fails to find libpq-fe.h even though I know it’s locations exactly… The below is where I’ve attempted symbolic links from within /usr/local/include using sudo ln -s path/to/library library-name

   • sudo ln -s /opt/homebrew/Cellar/postgresql@14/14.12/include/postgresql@14 postgresql@14
   • sudo ln -s /opt/homebrew/Cellar/libpq/16.3/include libpq
   • sudo ln -s /opt/homebrew/include/postgresql@14 postgresql@14
   • sudo ln -s ~/vcpkg/packages/libpq_arm64-osx/include libpq

The only way I have found to get 2 working is by adding an env var to my .bashrc file:
export CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH="/opt/homebrew/Cellar/libpq/16.3/include/"

Though I’d rather not do this. One of my colleagues rightfully stated “it shouldn’t be this difficult.”

What can I do to ensure libpq is found by the compiler properly – as well as fixing the linker issue for libpq too – without modifying the Makefile or creating env vars.