diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'docs')
| -rw-r--r-- | docs/Building-Against-Non-Homebrew-Dependencies.md | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | docs/README.md | 1 |
2 files changed, 12 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/docs/Building-Against-Non-Homebrew-Dependencies.md b/docs/Building-Against-Non-Homebrew-Dependencies.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..4e85757a1 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/Building-Against-Non-Homebrew-Dependencies.md @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +# Building Against Non-Homebrew Dependencies + +## History + +Originally Homebrew was a build-from-source package manager and all user environment variables and non-Homebrew-installed software were available to builds. Since then Homebrew added `Requirement`s to specify dependencies on non-Homebrew software (such as those provided by `brew cask` like X11/XQuartz), the `superenv` build system to strip out unspecified dependencies, environment filtering to stop the user environment leaking into Homebrew builds and `default_formula` to specify that a `Requirement` can be satisifed by a particular formula. + +As Homebrew became primarily a binary package manager, most users were fulfilling `Requirement`s with the `default_formula`, not with arbitrary alternatives. To improve quality and reduce variation, Homebrew now exclusively supports using the default formula, as an ordinary dependency, and no longer supports using arbitrary alternatives. + +## Today + +If you wish to build against custom non-Homebrew dependencies that are provided by Homebrew (e.g. a non-Homebrew, non-macOS `ruby`) then you must [create and maintain your own tap](How-to-Create-and-Maintain-a-Tap.md) as these formulae will not be accepted in Homebrew/homebrew-core. Once you have done that you can specify `env :std` in the formula which will allow a e.g. `which ruby` to access your existing `PATH` variable and allow compilation to link against this Ruby. diff --git a/docs/README.md b/docs/README.md index f069ae562..fe227291b 100644 --- a/docs/README.md +++ b/docs/README.md @@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ - [Python for Formula Authors](Python-for-Formula-Authors.md) - [Migrating A Formula To A Tap](Migrating-A-Formula-To-A-Tap.md) - [Rename A Formula](Rename-A-Formula.md) +- [Building Against Non-Homebrew Dependencies](Building-Against-Non-Homebrew-Dependencies.md) - [How To Create (And Maintain) A Tap](How-to-Create-and-Maintain-a-Tap.md) - [Brew Test Bot](Brew-Test-Bot.md) - [Prose Style Guidelines](Prose-Style-Guidelines.md) |