[homebrew] How can I brew link a specific version?

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?

This question is related to homebrew

The answer is


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.


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)

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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.


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


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