extension_control_path

The new GUC extension_control_path specifies a path to look for
extension control files.  The default value is $system, which looks in
the compiled-in location, as before.

The path search uses the same code and works in the same way as
dynamic_library_path.

Some use cases of this are: (1) testing extensions during package
builds, (2) installing extensions outside security-restricted
containers like Python.app (on macOS), (3) adding extensions to
PostgreSQL running in a Kubernetes environment using operators such as
CloudNativePG without having to rebuild the base image for each new
extension.

There is also a tweak in Makefile.global so that it is possible to
install extensions using PGXS into an different directory than the
default, using 'make install prefix=/else/where'.  This previously
only worked when specifying the subdirectories, like 'make install
datadir=/else/where/share pkglibdir=/else/where/lib', for purely
implementation reasons.  (Of course, without the path feature,
installing elsewhere was rarely useful.)

Author: Peter Eisentraut <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Matheus Alcantara <[email protected]>
Reviewed-by: David E. Wheeler <[email protected]>
Reviewed-by: Gabriele Bartolini <[email protected]>
Reviewed-by: Marco Nenciarini <[email protected]>
Reviewed-by: Niccolò Fei <[email protected]>
Discussion: https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/[email protected]

1 files changed, 2 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/src/include/commands/extension.h b/src/include/commands/extension.h
index 0b636405120..24419bfb5c9 100644
--- a/src/include/commands/extension.h
+++ b/src/include/commands/extension.h
@@ -17,6 +17,8 @@
 #include "catalog/objectaddress.h"
 #include "parser/parse_node.h"
 
+/* GUC */
+extern PGDLLIMPORT char *Extension_control_path;
 
 /*
  * creating_extension is only true while running a CREATE EXTENSION or ALTER