CODEWITHSUNDEEP
homebrew
Samar Panda
Samar Panda

Reputation: 4304

How can i get more info about a brew formula before installing?

I know i can do something like 

## brew info FORMULA_NAME
brew info wgetpaste

Output

wgetpaste: stable 2.20
http://wgetpaste.zlin.dk/
Not installed
https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/commits/master/Library/Formula/wgetpaste.rb

Then i can follow the url to get some info about the formula before installing. Do we have any way to get this info in command line using brew?

Upvotes: 78

Views: 46086

Answers (6)

Andrew Janke
Andrew Janke

Reputation: 23858

The brew info command's output now (as of 2022-ish) contains a brief description of what the formula installs. So it now probably already gives the info asked for here, though it didn't back in 2013 when this question was originally posted.

You can do a brew home <formula> to fire up a browser with the package's home page from the command line for more details. Or brew edit <formula> to examine the formula's installation instructions themselves in an editor.

You can also run brew desc --eval-all <formula> for a more concise one-line description of what the formula installs, without all the extra info about sources and dependencies and analytics.

Upvotes: 64

hrmncd
hrmncd

Reputation: 1045

Works as of January 2024 with Homebrew 4.1.1:

brew info --cask <packagename>

Upvotes: 1

Paul Crook
Paul Crook

Reputation: 411

You can get a one-line textual description of a package with:

brew desc FORMULA-NAME

For example, "brew desc terminator" returns:

terminator: Multiple terminals in one window

In Homebrew 3.6 you will see this message:

Warning: Calling brew desc is deprecated! Use brew desc --eval-all or HOMEBREW_EVAL_ALL instead.

Upvotes: 29

Misty
Misty

Reputation: 536

In homebrew you have casks and formulas, which have different functions, so:

For formulas:

To get info about the formula itself you can use what you did (brew info [formula name). To get info about the app you're installing use:

brew desc [Formula name]

You can also go to the homebrew's site for the formula via brew home [formula name

For Casks:

Sadly, casks (like Firefox) don't have the desc command and you only have brew cask info (what you used) and brew cask home

Upvotes: 2

Alex
Alex

Reputation: 1639

I use brew [cask] cat [...] to see the exact formula (without necessarily editing it as other answers here suggest). It shows what gets downloaded, from where, with what checksum, what other formuli/casks it depends on, etc. Here's an example:

$ brew cask cat java
cask 'java' do
  version '12.0.2,10:e482c34c86bd4bf8b56c0b35558996b9'
  sha256 '675a739ab89b28a8db89510f87cb2ec3206ec6662fb4b4996264c16c72cdd2a1'

  url "https://download.java.net/java/GA/jdk#{version.before_comma}/#{version.after_colon}/#{version.after_comma.before_colon}/GPL/openjdk-#{version.before_comma}_osx-x64_bin.tar.gz"
  name 'OpenJDK Java Development Kit'
  homepage 'https://openjdk.java.net/'

  artifact "jdk-#{version.before_comma}.jdk", target: "/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/openjdk-#{version.before_comma}.jdk"

  uninstall rmdir: '/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines'
end

Upvotes: 4

M.G.
M.G.

Reputation: 530

try this: 

brew cask info [package]

Upvotes: 5

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