How can I brew link a specific version?

Question

I have a few kegs of the same package in /usr/local/Cellar/libfoo like /usr/local/Cellar/libfoo/1.0.1, /usr/local/Cellar/libfoo/HEAD a

Answer 1

brew switch libfoo mycopy

You can use brew switch to switch between versions of the same package, if it's installed as versioned subdirectories under Cellar//

This will list versions installed ( for example I had Cellar/sdl2/2.0.3, I've compiled into Cellar/sdl2/2.0.4)

brew info sdl2

Then to switch between them

brew switch sdl2 2.0.4
brew info 

Info now shows * next to the 2.0.4

To install under Cellar// from source you can do for example

cd ~/somewhere/src/foo-2.0.4
./configure --prefix $(brew --Cellar)/foo/2.0.4
make

check where it gets installed with

make install -n

if all looks correct

make install

Then from cd $(brew --Cellar) do the switch between version.

I'm using brew version 0.9.5