Install and use several versions without "relinking"

[aywan]

Hello, I'm absolutely newbie in macos)

On Linux Ubuntu I used to ondrej ppa with several versions of Php. After install you can use any version without linking process. For example when I want use 8.2 - i type in console php8.2, and php7.4 for 7.4)
I install several versions, but can't found it binaries for make symlink into bin dir. I think that /opt/homebrew/bin/php is just symlink, but it is binary.
Maybe it's good idea to provide access to all installed versions simultaneously without relinking?

[shivammathur]

@aywan

You can use different PHP versions in macOS as well without linking, but you will have to update your paths each month when a new php semver version is released.

both apt packages on Ubuntu, and brew packages on macOS have linking.

• On Ubuntu
  It installs the binaries by default in /usr/bin. For example /usr/bin/php8.1, /usr/bin/php8.2, etc,
  There is also a symlink /usr/bin/php that links to /etc/alternatives/php. /etc/alternatives/php links to the latest php binary installed by default, and you can switch using the update-alternatives command.

• On macOS using brew
  It installs packages in a folder called Cellar. In your case, it will be /opt/homebrew/Cellar. Inside that, you can find directories for all the brew packages that are installed. Then, for example, the path for PHP 8.1 binary can be /opt/homebrew/Cellar/[email protected]/8.1.20/bin/php.
  Please notice that the exact php semver version is in this path, brew provides functionality to link it to a directory called prefix. In your case it is /opt/homebrew and the bin directory in the prefix would be /opt/homebew/bin where it will link the binary from the cellar directory.

So, packages on both OS have linking, ubuntu replaces the binaries when there is a new semver version, so it does not have it in the path of the binaries. brew keeps the old semver version and installs the new semver version in the cellar.