Homebrew, Ruby, and Git
06 Dec 2013I encountered some interesting behavior between Homebrew and Ruby this afternoon. I can describe what happened, but I don’t yet understand why. Perhaps another member of the dev community can shed some light.
Upgrading to Git 1.8.5
Earlier today I learned that Git 1.8.5 was available. So I decided to upgrade. Since I use Homebrew for package management, it was time for $ brew doctor and $ brew update as well.
$ brew doctor
Error: Homebrew doesn't know what compiler versions ship with your version
of Xcode (5.0.2). Please `brew update` and if that doesn't help, file
an issue with the output of `brew --config`:
https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/issues
Thanks!
Warning: Your Homebrew is outdated.
You haven't updated for at least 24 hours, this is a long time in brewland!
To update Homebrew, run `brew update`.
~/Code/Ruby/apps$
$ brew doctor has spoken. Time to update Homebrew.
Homebrew First. Git Later.
Updating Homebrew is as simple as $ brew update, right?
~$ brew update
Warning: Could not tap homebrew/dupes/ant over mxcl/master/ant
Warning: Could not tap homebrew/dupes/cvs over mxcl/master/cvs
Error: undefined method `to_sym' for nil:NilClass
Please report this bug:
https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/wiki/troubleshooting
/usr/local/Library/Homebrew/cmd/update.rb:123:in `report'
/usr/local/Library/Homebrew/cmd/update.rb:121:in `each_line'
/usr/local/Library/Homebrew/cmd/update.rb:121:in `report'
/usr/local/Library/Homebrew/cmd/update.rb:35:in `update'
/usr/local/Library/brew.rb:95:in `send'
/usr/local/Library/brew.rb:95
~/Code/Ruby/apps$
$ brew update choked. Further, Homebrew said that I should report a bug. But something smelled fishy. I decided to try running Homebrew under Ruby 2.0.0 instead of Ruby 1.9.3, the default on my system. Running RVM makes bouncing between Ruby versions a snap.
~$ rvm use 2.0.0
That did the trick. $ brew update worked fine, and $ brew doctor
confirmed it.
~$ brew update
Updated Homebrew from 69a83176 to 691c72bf.
…
~$ brew doctor
Your system is ready to brew.
Back to Git
Now that the yak is well-shaved, we’re ready to upgrade Git.
~$ brew upgrade git
==> Upgrading 1 outdated package, with result:
git 1.8.5.1
==> Upgrading git
==> Downloading https://downloads.sf.net/project/machomebrew/Bottles/git-1.8.5.1.mountain_lion.bottle.tar.gz
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> Pouring git-1.8.5.1.mountain_lion.bottle.tar.gz
==> Caveats
The OS X keychain credential helper has been installed to:
/usr/local/bin/git-credential-osxkeychain
The 'contrib' directory has been installed to:
/usr/local/share/git-core/contrib
Bash completion has been installed to:
/usr/local/etc/bash_completion.d
zsh completion has been installed to:
/usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions
==> Summary
/usr/local/Cellar/git/1.8.5.1: 1333 files, 30M
Mission accomplished. Git has been upgraded to 1.8.5.
~$ git --version
git version 1.8.5.1
~$
Why This Matters
I’m posting this article as a note to my future self. Error messages sometimes lie. They don’t mean to lie, but an error messsage can only give you its best guess based on what it thinks is happening on your system. It’s up to the developer to sniff out the rest of the clues.
After decades in this industry, I’m still learning this lesson :-)