homebrew - how to install older versions - homebrew

Question

I'm trying to install memcached with older versions (ex: 1.4.5) but I'm not sure how to do it.
brew install memcached installs the latest.
I also tried brew install memecached1.4.5 but it didn't work.

Answer 1

Usually, you can check if multiple versions are available and you can specify the version with #. e.g. brew install package#2.8
$ brew info memcached
memcached: stable 1.4.24
High performance, distributed memory object caching system
https://memcached.org/
Conflicts with:
mysql-cluster (because both install `bin/memcached`)
Not installed
From: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/master/Formula/memcached.rb
...
If is not available the version you want you can go to the repo, and check the history
cd "$(brew --repo homebrew/core)"
git log master -- Formula/memcached.rb
Then you can find the commit you are looking for
commit 5ec463decefeaab3d1825b923ad2dbee73ffc6dc
Author: Adam Vandenberg <flangy#gmail.com>
Date: Fri Apr 9 21:19:48 2010 -0700
Update memcached to 1.4.5
Checkout that version and install:
cd "$(brew --repo homebrew/core)" && git checkout 5ec463decefeaab3d1825b923ad2dbee73ffc6dc
HOMEBREW_NO_AUTO_UPDATE=1 brew install memcached
Once you get the version installed:
git checkout master # bring brew back to its latest version
brew pin memcached # [optional] prevent formula from updating
and, that's it!

Answer 2

I would do
brew unlink memecached
brew install memecached#1.4.5
brew link memecached#1.4.5 --force

Answer 3

A more expanded version of the good answer from Adrian is also here on SO.
https://stackoverflow.com/a/53766019/3794873
One thing to keep in mind is that if you are installing an older Formula the Homebrew API/methods may have changed since that time so you should brew edit appFormula against the current version and compare to the brew edit app#your.version if you encounter any errors trying to brew install app#your.version after the brew extract command in the answer linked.

Answer 4

2021 update:
$ curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/<commit-hash>/Casks/<FORMULA>.rb > $(find $(brew --repository) -name <FORMULA>.rb)
$ brew reinstall <FORMULA>
You can find the cask or formula file URL here and the commit message should describe the file version to grab the URL for.
https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/commits/master/Formula/<formula>.rb
https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/commits/master/Casks/<cask>.rb
Credit: https://remarkablemark.org/blog/2017/02/03/install-brew-package-version/

Answer 5

Sharing an interactive oneliner I made for myself of Adrian's answer now:
It does a simple parsing, depending only on "/blob/" in the github URL, of "From" in brew info, and does a bash select of commit from git log.
brew install can be replaced with brew reinstall as needed.
Tested (for cask "name=powershell") in bash 5.1 (from macports ;P) and env -i /bin/bash 3.2 on macOS (High Sierra) 10.13.6 against brew 3.3.11. (I might have done some tap'ing the other day.)
(name= && { [[ $name ]]||read -ep "Name: " name;} && [[ $(brew info "$name"|sed -Ene'/^From: (.*)/s//\1/p') =~ ([^/]*)/blob/([^/]*)/([^/]*)/([^/]*) ]] && V=("${BASH_REMATCH[#]:1}") && N=(repo current dir file) && for s in ${!N[#]};do eval "${N[s]}=\${V[s]}" && declare -p >&2 "${N[s]}";done && cd "$(brew --repo "${repo//-//}")" && IFSO="$IFS" && IFS=$'\n' && select line in $(git log --oneline master -- "$dir/$file");do IFS="$IFSO" && commit=($line) && break;done && set -x && git checkout "$commit" && HOMEBREW_NO_AUTO_UPDATE=1 brew install "$name" && git checkout master)
Skål, salud, cheers!