macos - How to get Brew formula from the filename of installed binary? - Ask Different

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It is not part of Homebrew proper but you can inspect the code yourself.

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answered Apr 4, 2020 at 13:36

Synoli

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Not a user of Homebrew as I prefer MacPorts, but this is really cool. +1
– Allan
Apr 5, 2020 at 5:27
1

Thank you. So, basically what your command does, is to go into /usr/local/bin, search for a symlink matching the supplied filename, follow the symlink into /usr/local/Cellar to get the name of the formula that's in the absolute path, e.g.: /usr/local/bin/ragg2@ -> ../Cellar/radare2/4.3.1/bin/ragg2?
– Shuzheng
Apr 5, 2020 at 5:33
@Shuzheng Mostly, yes. It also honors /usr/local/sbin, and I plan to add support for Cask- and npm-installed executables.
– Synoli
Apr 5, 2020 at 19:30
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You may also want to check out github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-command-not-found. It provides a brew which-formula command, which may support not-yet-installed packages, too. (I didn’t know it existed until after I wrote brew whence.)
– Synoli
Apr 5, 2020 at 19:34
brew whence does not work for the keg-only llvm formula. The "comes from" column is blank. brew whence /usr/local/opt/llvm/lib/libc++.a /usr/local/opt/llvm/lib/libc++.a (not a link)
– strager
Jan 13, 2021 at 9:35