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Tips N' Tricks

Installing previous versions of formulae

The preferred and supported method of installing specific versions of formulae is to use the homebrew/versions tap. If the version you’re looking for isn’t available, consider opening a pull request!

Installing directly from pull-requests

You can browse pull requests https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/pulls and install through the direct link. For example Python 3.3.0 pull request Homebrew/legacy-homebrew#15199

brew install https://raw.github.com/dsr/homebrew/9b22d42f50fcbc5e52c764448b3ac002bc153bd7/Library/Formula/python3.rb

Quickly remove something from /usr/local

brew unlink $FORMULA

This can be useful if a package can't build against the version of something you have linked into /usr/local.

And of course, you can simply brew link $FORMULA again afterwards!

Activate a previously installed version of a formula

brew info $FORMULA
brew switch $FORMULA $VERSION

Use brew info $FORMULA to check what versions are installed but not currently activated, then brew switch $FORMULA $VERSION to activate the desired version. This can be useful if you would like to switch between versions of a formula.

Install into Homebrew without formulae

./configure --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/foo/1.2 && make && make install && brew link foo

Pre-downloading a file for a formula

Sometimes it's faster to download a file via means other than those strategies that are available as part of Homebrew. For example, Erlang provides a torrent that'll let you download at 4–5× the normal HTTP method.

Download the file and drop it in ~/Library/Caches/Homebrew, but watch the file name. Homebrew downloads files as {{ formula name }}-{{ version }}. In the case of Erlang, this requires renaming the file from otp_src_R13B03 to erlang-R13B03.

brew --cache -s erlang will print the correct name of the cached download. This means instead of manually renaming a formula, you can run mv the_tarball $(brew --cache -s $FORMULA).

You can also pre-cache the download by using the command brew fetch formula which also displays the SHA256 value. This can be useful for updating formulae to new versions.

Using Homebrew behind a proxy

Behind the scenes, Homebrew uses several commands for downloading files (e.g. curl, git, svn). Many of these tools can download via a proxy. It's a common (though not universal) convention for these command-line tools to observe getting the proxy parameters from environment variables (e.g. http_proxy). Unfortunately, most tools are inconsistent in their use of these environment parameters (e.g. curl supports http_proxy, HTTPS_PROXY, FTP_PROXY, GOPHER_PROXY, ALL_PROXY, NO_PROXY).

Luckily, for the majority of cases setting http_proxy is enough. You can set this environment variable in several ways (search on the internet for details), including at runtime:

http_proxy=http://<proxyhost>:<proxyport> brew install $FORMULA

Proxy Authentication

http_proxy=http://<user>:<password>@<proxyhost>:<proxyport>  brew install $FORMULA

Installing stuff without the Xcode-CLT

$ brew sh          # or: eval $(brew --env)
$ gem install ronn # or c-programs

This imports the brew environment into your existing shell, gem will pick up the environment variables and be able to build. As a bonus brew's automatically determined optimization flags are set.

Install only a formula's dependencies (not the formula)

brew install --only-dependencies $FORMULA

Interactive Homebrew Shell

$ brew irb
1.8.7 :001 > Formula.factory("ace").methods - Object.methods
 => [:install, :path, :homepage, :downloader, :stable, :bottle, :devel, :head, :active_spec, :buildpath, :ensure_specs_set, :url, :version, :specs, :mirrors, :installed?, :explicitly_requested?, :linked_keg, :installed_prefix, :prefix, :rack, :bin, :doc, :include, :info, :lib, :libexec, :man, :man1, :man2, :man3, :man4, :man5, :man6, :man7, :man8, :sbin, :share, :etc, :var, :plist_name, :plist_path, :download_strategy, :cached_download, :caveats, :options, :patches, :keg_only?, :fails_with?, :skip_clean?, :brew, :std_cmake_args, :deps, :external_deps, :recursive_deps, :system, :fetch, :verify_download_integrity, :fails_with_llvm, :fails_with_llvm?, :std_cmake_parameters, :mkdir, :mktemp]
1.8.7 :002 >

Hiding the beer mug emoji when finishing a build

export HOMEBREW_NO_EMOJI=1

This sets the HOMEBREW_NO_EMOJI environment variable, causing Homebrew to hide all emoji.

The beer emoji can also be replaced with other character(s):

export HOMEBREW_INSTALL_BADGE="☕️ 🐸"

Editor plugins

Sublime Text

In Sublime Text 2/3, you can use Package Control to install Homebrew-formula-syntax, which adds highlighting for inline patches.

Vim

brew.vim adds highlighting to inline patches in Vim.

Emacs

homebrew-mode provides syntax highlighting for inline patches as well as a number of helper functions for editing formula files.