How are packages installed with --HEAD kept up-to-date?

[penyuan]

Hello,

I've got some packages, such as ffmpeg, installed with the --HEAD option. How does Homebrew keep packages like this updated? Is it the same as any other package when updating with brew update && brew upgrade?

[SMillerDev]

No, AFAIK if you want to install from the latest HEAD you'll have to remove the old version and install again with --head

[penyuan]

Thanks for the quick response!

[carlocab]

brew only checks whether HEAD installs are outdated when the stable version is updated.

If you want to check before then, you can do brew outdated --fetch-HEAD and then brew upgrade --fetch-HEAD if there's a newer commit available.

[penyuan]

Understood. Appreciate the explanation! Will do.