How can I brew link a specific version?

Question

I have a few kegs of the same package in /usr/local/Cellar/libfoo like /usr/local/Cellar/libfoo/1.0.1, /usr/local/Cellar/libfoo/HEAD and /usr/local/Cellar/libfoo/mycopy

How can I brew link to a specific version?

Answer 1

brew switch libfoo mycopy

You can use brew switch to switch between versions of the same package, if it's installed as versioned subdirectories under Cellar/<packagename>/

This will list versions installed ( for example I had Cellar/sdl2/2.0.3, I've compiled into Cellar/sdl2/2.0.4)

brew info sdl2

Then to switch between them

brew switch sdl2 2.0.4
brew info 

Info now shows * next to the 2.0.4

To install under Cellar/<packagename>/<version> from source you can do for example

cd ~/somewhere/src/foo-2.0.4
./configure --prefix $(brew --Cellar)/foo/2.0.4
make

check where it gets installed with

make install -n

if all looks correct

make install

Then from cd $(brew --Cellar) do the switch between version.

I'm using brew version 0.9.5

Answer 2

The usage info:

Usage: brew switch <formula> <version>

Example:

brew switch mysql 5.5.29

You can find the versions installed on your system with info.

brew info mysql

And to see the available versions to install, you can provide a dud version number, as brew will helpfully respond with the available version numbers:

brew switch mysql 0

---

Update (15.10.2014):

The brew versions command has been removed from brew, but, if you do wish to use this command first run brew tap homebrew/boneyard.

The recommended way to install an old version is to install from the homebrew/versions repo as follows:

$ brew tap homebrew/versions
$ brew install mysql55

---

For detailed info on all the ways to install an older version of a formula read this answer.

Answer 3

if @simon's answer is not working in some of the mac's please follow the below process.

If you have already installed swiftgen using the following commands:

$ brew update $ brew install swiftgen

then follow the steps below in order to run swiftgen with older version.

Step 1: brew uninstall swiftgen Step 2: Navigate to: https://github.com/SwiftGen/SwiftGen/releases and download the swiftgen with version: swiftgen-4.2.0.zip.

Unzip the package in any of the directories.

Step 3: Execute the following in a terminal:

$ mkdir -p ~/dependencies/swiftgen
$ cp -R ~/<your_directory_name>/swiftgen-4.2.0/ ~/dependencies/swiftgen
$ cd /usr/local/bin
$ ln -s ~/dependencies/swiftgen/bin/swiftgen swiftgen
$ mkdir ~/Library/Application\ Support/SwiftGen
$ ln -s ~/dependencies/swiftgen/templates/ ~/Library/Application\ Support/SwiftGen/

$ swiftgen --version

You should get: SwiftGen v0.0 (Stencil v0.8.0, StencilSwiftKit v1.0.0, SwiftGenKit v1.0.1)

Answer 4

If you have installed, for example, php 5.4 it could be switched in the following way to php 5.5:

$ php --version
PHP 5.4.32 (cli) (built: Aug 26 2014 15:14:01) 
Copyright (c) 1997-2014 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.4.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2014 Zend Technologies

$ brew unlink php54

$ brew switch php55 5.5.16

$ php --version
PHP 5.5.16 (cli) (built: Sep  9 2014 14:27:18) 
Copyright (c) 1997-2014 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.5.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2014 Zend Technologies

Answer 5

I asked in #machomebrew and learned that you can switch between versions using brew switch.

$ brew switch libfoo mycopy 

to get version mycopy of libfoo.