Asdf: `asdf help` does not work with Homebrew installation

[deiga]

Steps to reproduce

• brew install asdf
• asdf or asdf help

Expected behavior

Should list help text for asdf

Actual behavior

cat: /usr/local/VERSION: No such file or directory
version:

cat: /usr/local/help.txt: No such file or directory

"Late but latest"
-- Rajinikanth

Environment

OS: macOS 10.14.6

asdf version: 0.75

[vic]

I'm not a Homebrew user, it'd be awesome if you can find what's the problem, looks like the asdf_dir function thinks it's somehow at /usr/local/lib/utils.sh which would be weird.

[deiga]

@vic The issue has probably to do with how Homebrew links files. So the brew installation links everything to /usr/local, like this:

$ brew link asdf --dry-run
Would link:
/usr/local/etc/bash_completion.d/asdf.bash
/usr/local/bin/asdf
/usr/local/share/fish/vendor_completions.d/asdf.fish
/usr/local/lib/asdf.fish
/usr/local/lib/asdf.sh
/usr/local/lib/commands
/usr/local/lib/utils.sh

When running /usr/local/lib/commands/command-help it tries to read help.txt from asdf_dir() which does not resolve to the brew install path but the symlink path.
One option would be to make an conditional to return $(brew --prefix asdf) from asdf_dir() if asdf was installed from Homebrew.

[vic]

Hm, that's weird, so your /usr/local/lib/utils.sh is a symlink to the real $ASDF_DIR/lib/utils.sh ? I wouldn't expect brew to do that, what if another package had their own lib/utils.sh file, that would cause problems. And.. even when you have lib/utils.sh symlinked, you don't have a /usr/local/VERSION symlink, right?

On our side, I believe we have to make bin/asdf determine if it's own file is a link and somehow resolve to the real ASDF dir, probably using something like realpath (from coreutils but that would cause asdf to depend on coreutils being available) or readlink. If I recall correctly both of realpathand readlink were being checked somewhere inside test/ as forbidden commands, and there was also a function of our own to resolve links.

[vic]

In the meantime you could use the bin/asdf from the real location where asdf was installed by homebrew.

[vic]

@jmegs, you were using asdf homebrew with --HEAD right?, are you also having this issue?

[jmegs]

I'm testing the asdf setup on my other machine so can't confirm until later tonight EST, but as far as I could tell I was seeing help text loaded correctly with the bare asdf command. Don't recall if I ever ran asdf help directly. Will confirm tonight.

EDIT: for more context, I'm experimenting with switching my dotfiles over to use asdf vs. nvm and rbenv together. So I'm very in favor of having homebrew installs working well so I can brew "asdf", args: ['HEAD'] in my Brewfile along with all my other software rather than having to script just that one thing using git directly.

[deiga]

@vic That weirdness comes from the fact, that the Homebrew formula links all directories in the asdf repo and this line https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf/blob/master/bin/asdf#L4

[vic]

@deiga looks like that's the line we have to change. Are you willing to sending a PR and test it works with brew symlinks, please?

[deiga]

@vic Yeah, I can try and find some time to work on this.

[yumitsu]

@deiga Tell me if you need some help with that.

[QuintinWillison]

In the meantime you could use the bin/asdf from the real location where asdf was installed by homebrew.

That helped me. Thanks!

% which asdf
/usr/local/bin/asdf
% realpath /usr/local/bin/asdf
/usr/local/Cellar/asdf/0.7.6/bin/asdf
% /usr/local/Cellar/asdf/0.7.6/bin/asdf 
version: v0.7.6

etc..

[joschi]

It seems to work with the latest version of asdf (v0.7.7 at the time of writing):

> which asdf
/usr/local/opt/asdf/bin/asdf

> realpath $(which asdf)
/usr/local/Cellar/asdf/0.7.7/bin/asdf

> asdf help
version: v0.7.7

MANAGE PLUGINS
  asdf plugin add <name> [<git-url>]       Add a plugin from the plugin repo OR, add a Git repo
                                           as a plugin by specifying the name and repo url
  asdf plugin list [--urls] [--refs]       List installed plugins. Optionally show git urls and git-ref.
  asdf plugin list all                     List plugins registered on asdf-plugins repository with URLs
  asdf plugin remove <name>                Remove plugin and package versions
  asdf plugin update <name> [<git-ref>]    Update a plugin to latest commit or a particular git-ref.
  asdf plugin update --all                 Update all plugins


MANAGE PACKAGES
  asdf install [<name> <version>]          Install a specific version of a package or,
                                           with no arguments, install all the package
                                           versions listed in the .tool-versions file
  asdf uninstall <name> <version>          Remove a specific version of a package
  asdf current                             Display current version set or being used for all packages
  asdf current <name>                      Display current version set or being used for package
  asdf where <name> [<version>]            Display install path for an installed or current version
  asdf which <command>                     Display the path to an executable
  asdf shell <name> <version>              Set the package version in the current shell
  asdf local <name> <version>              Set the package local version
  asdf global <name> <version>             Set the package global version
  asdf list <name>                         List installed versions of a package
  asdf list all <name>                     List all versions of a package


UTILS
  asdf exec <command> [args..]             Executes the command shim for current version
  asdf env <command> [util]                Runs util (default: `env`) inside the environment used for command shim execution.
  asdf reshim <name> <version>             Recreate shims for version of a package
  asdf shim-versions <command>             List on which plugins and versions is command available
  asdf update                              Update asdf to the latest stable release
  asdf update --head                       Update asdf to the latest on the master branch

"Late but latest"
-- Rajinikanth

[januswel]

On v0.7.8, this issue still appears

re-pro steps are here

brew install asdf
# or
brew install asdf --HEAD

asdf

[jthegedus]

@januswel Thanks for reporting.

Your reproduction doesn't follow all of the asdf setup instructions. Namely, you need to add asdf to your shell as well.

# install
brew install asdf
# add to shell       <-- commonly missed setup step
. $(brew --prefix asdf)/asdf.sh
# restart your shell <-- commonly missed setup step
# run asdf command
asdf

Can you confirm this occurs after all the setup steps are complete?

[januswel]

Thank you @jthegedus
It works after adding . $(brew --prefix asdf)/asdf.sh

[jthegedus]

Glad that helped. I am going to be updating the docs soon to better communicate that it is a multi-step process as most homebrew users hit this issue.

[januswel]

@jthegedus

I am going to be updating the docs soon to better communicate that it is a multi-step process as most homebrew users hit this issue.

It's very nice!!
I have added some changes to show install instructions for the Homebrew formula

https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/pull/54315

Feel free to close and create another PR to improve in your way 🙇

[copremesis]

you don't need to restart the shell (for those of you have like 20 open)

just include this line

. $(brew --prefix asdf)/asdf.sh

into your .*rc file (I'm using zshrc on this box at the time)

_ie_:

echo ". $(brew --prefix asdf)/asdf.sh" >> $HOME/.zshrc # (or .bashrc depending on which shell you are using)

and then do this:

source ~/.zshrc

~ % asdf help
version: v0.7.8

MANAGE PLUGINS
  asdf plugin add <name> [<git-url>]       Add a plugin from the plugin repo OR, add a Git repo
                                           as a plugin by specifying the name and repo url
  asdf plugin list [--urls] [--refs]       List installed plugins. Optionally show git urls and git-ref.
  asdf plugin list all                     List plugins registered on asdf-plugins repository with URLs
  asdf plugin remove <name>                Remove plugin and package versions
  asdf plugin update <name> [<git-ref>]    Update a plugin to latest commit or a particular git-ref.
  asdf plugin update --all                 Update all plugins


MANAGE PACKAGES
  asdf install [<name> <version>]          Install a specific version of a package or,
                                           with no arguments, install all the package
                                           versions listed in the .tool-versions file
  asdf uninstall <name> <version>          Remove a specific version of a package
  asdf current                             Display current version set or being used for all packages
  asdf current <name>                      Display current version set or being used for package
  asdf where <name> [<version>]            Display install path for an installed or current version
  asdf which <command>                     Display the path to an executable
  asdf shell <name> <version>              Set the package version in the current shell
  asdf local <name> <version>              Set the package local version
  asdf global <name> <version>             Set the package global version
  asdf list <name>                         List installed versions of a package
  asdf list all <name>                     List all versions of a package


UTILS
  asdf exec <command> [args..]             Executes the command shim for current version
  asdf env <command> [util]                Runs util (default: `env`) inside the environment used for command shim execution.
  asdf reshim <name> <version>             Recreate shims for version of a package
  asdf shim-versions <command>             List on which plugins and versions is command available
  asdf update                              Update asdf to the latest stable release
  asdf update --head                       Update asdf to the latest on the master branch

"Late but latest"
-- Rajinikanth