Add possibility to show the description of a formula with brew list and brew leaves

[nbro]

Output of brew config

HOMEBREW_VERSION: 4.2.20
ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew
HEAD: c2ed3327c605c3e738359c9807b8f4cd6fec09eb
Last commit: 8 days ago
Core tap HEAD: d6500a8912b02f838d9edf36263f6487fb8af34d
Core tap last commit: 26 hours ago
Core tap JSON: 06 May 12:34 UTC
Core cask tap HEAD: 8f1cdf8d25c0f626b622362cedaf76c4c428c6f5
Core cask tap last commit: 26 hours ago
Core cask tap JSON: 06 May 12:34 UTC
HOMEBREW_PREFIX: /usr/local
HOMEBREW_CASK_OPTS: []
HOMEBREW_MAKE_JOBS: 8
Homebrew Ruby: 3.1.4 => /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/vendor/portable-ruby/3.1.4/bin/ruby
CPU: octa-core 64-bit haswell
Clang: 13.1.6 build 1316
Git: 2.32.1 => /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/git
Curl: 8.4.0 => /usr/bin/curl
macOS: 12.7.4-x86_64
CLT: 14.2.0.0.1.1668646533
Xcode: 13.4.1

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Description of issue

It would be nice to be able to see the description of each formula whenever we do brew list, so that we have an idea of what is installed in our system, if we don't know a formula (because maybe it was installed as a dependency of another one or you simply don't know or remember why you installed it). So, basically, what I'm asking is that brew list gets another flag --desc, which can be used with --versions or --installed-on-request (or any other flag) and that would show the description of a formula. I know there's brew desc, but that is not the same thing.

See also https://github.com/orgs/Homebrew/discussions/5342

[carlocab]

Have you tried doing something like

brew list | xargs brew desc
brew desc $(brew list)
brew leaves | xargs brew desc
brew desc $(brew leaves)

?

[nbro]

Yes, I thought of using xargs too, but what if I want to see the description and version at the same time. In other words, I'd like to be able to combine different flags when calling list. I don't think this might be that difficult to implement. If I can help, point me to the right code that would need to be changed.

[carlocab]

what if I want to see the description and version at the same time

You can use something like

brew leaves | xargs -I{} sh -c 'brew info {} | head -2'

or even

brew info --json=v2 --installed --formulae | jq -r '.formulae.[] | (.name + " (" + .versions.stable + "): " + .desc)'

I don't think this might be that difficult to implement.

I agree that it would not be difficult to implement -- I'm just not sure that it's something enough users are interested in enough for it to be worth maintaining code for. The users who are interested can use brew info --json to extract whatever information they need from brew in a format that's relatively straightforward to manipulate.

However, other maintainers may disagree, so:

If I can help, point me to the right code that would need to be changed.

You are probably interested in the code at

https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/blob/020d9947b0a195c9f91b264a0ebf8dc87d6b14d3/Library/Homebrew/cmd/list.rb
https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/blob/020d9947b0a195c9f91b264a0ebf8dc87d6b14d3/Library/Homebrew/cmd/leaves.rb