Tips N' Tricks

Package versions

The preferred and supported method of installing specific versions of formulae is to use the Homebrew-versions tap.

Installing directly from pull-requests

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

Install into Homebrew without formulas

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

Command tab-completion

Bash

Add to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile (whichever you have configured to run on shell startup):

source `brew --repository`/Library/Contributions/brew_bash_completion.sh

ZSH

Run in terminal (may require sudo):

ln -s "$(brew --prefix)/Library/Contributions/brew_zsh_completion.zsh" /usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions

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.

New:

mv the_tarball `brew --cache formula-name`

You can also pre-cache the download by using the command brew fetch formula which also displays the SHA1 and SHA256 values. 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), but the way I prefer is:

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

Proxy Authentication

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

NB: this technique will also work if you prefer to use sudo with Homebrew. But as sudo clears the environment before executing Homebrew, your proxy settings may get lost.

Workaround:

$ http_proxy=http://<proxyhost>:<proxyport>  sudo -E 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

brew irb

$ 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.

Sublime text: Syntax for formulae including the diff

In Sublime Text 2/3, you can use Package Control to install Homebrew-formula-syntax.