Crystal version management made easy
brew tap crimson/distribution https://github.com/crimson-crystal/distribution
brew install crimson
brew uninstall crystal
scoop bucket add crimson https://github.com/crimson-crystal/distribution
scoop install crimson
See the releases page for available packaged binaries.
curl -L https://github.com/crimson-crystal/crimson/releases/download/1.0.1/crimson-1.0.1-linux-x86_64.tar.gz -o crimson.tar.gz
tar -xvf crimson.tar.gz -C /usr/local/binInvoke-WebRequest "https://github.com/crimson-crystal/crimson/releases/download/1.0.1/crimson-1.0.1-windows-x86_64-msvc.zip" -OutFile crimson.zip
Expand-Archive .\crimson.zip .Important
Make sure to add the crimson.exe and crimson.pdb files to a directory in PATH.
Crystal version 1.13.0 or higher is required to build Crimson. Make sure to add the bin/ directory to PATH or move the Crimson binaries to a directory in PATH.
git clone https://github.com/crimson-crystal/crimson
cd crimson
shards buildTo get started, simply run crimson setup. This will setup the necessary configuration files and directories for Crimson, update your system to make the crystal and shards executables available and prompt you to install the necessary build dependencies for Crystal. You can bypass the prompts by including the -y/--yes flag, or skip dependency installation by including the -s/--skip-dependencies flag.
Note
Crystal's dependencies are not typically readily available on most systems so you will need to install them manually if you choose to skip them in the command.
Next, install Crystal using crimson install (or crimson in). By default this will install the latest available version unless you specify one (for example, crimson install 1.9.2). You can install any Crystal version that is available on the Crystal GitHub releases page. This unfortunately means that nightly builds cannot be installed via Crimson yet.
Finally, run the crimson switch <version> command to make that version of Crystal available on your system. You can also do this automatically by including the -s/--switch flag in crimson install. Now, try crystal version! To put this in perspective, you just setup and installed Crystal with 3 simple commands:
❯ crimson setup
Checking dependencies
Checking additional dependencies
No additional dependencies for this platform
❯ crimson install 1.9.2
Installing Crystal version: 1.9.2
Downloading sources...
Unpacking archive to destination...
1647 files unpacked (54.0MiB)
Cleaning up processes...
❯ crimson switch 1.9.2Versions can be aliased to make using them easier: run crimson alias <name> <version> to set an alias for a specific version (for example, crimson alias dev 1.9.2). You can view all aliases with crimson alias and delete an alias with crimson alias -d <name>. Aliases can also be set automatically by including the -a/--alias flag.
You can switch between Crystal versions using crimson switch <version> (or crimson use). If the version you wish to switch to has an alias, you can use that instead (for example, crimson switch dev). Versions can also be switched to automatically in the install command by including the -s/--switch flag. If you want to temporarily remove the current version from your system (for example, if you wanted to revert to a local install of Crystal) you can do so with crimson switch -d. This doesn't uninstall the Crystal version entirely, meaning you can easily switch back to it at any time.
What if you frequently install or switch versions and need a default available? You can set one using crimson default <version>. This also supports using aliases in place of the version.
But how exactly does it work? Lets say you have 1.9.2 as default and you're working with version 1.7.3 but no longer need it, so you remove it. Crimson will automatically switch back to the configured default so that you still have a version of Crystal available on your system.
You can also easily switch between your current and default version using crimson switch . which will set the former to the latter. Defaults can be removed using crimson default -d.
If you have a local Crystal compiler environment, you can import it into Crimson's environment using crimson import. This command has a few requirements:
- The
.build/,lib/andsrc/directories must be present - Crystal must already be compiled and its binaries readily available in the
.build/directory
To ensure Crimson's cross-platform compatibility and platform-specific system requirements, Crystal cannot be built using this command. The install version is obtained from the compiler during the import process. If that version is already installed, the command will fail. To work around this you can specify the -R/--rename flag with a version name to be imported under.
By default, local compiler sources are copied into Crimson's environment. If you want to update source files without having to re-import the compiler environment, you can specify the --link flag which connects the local compiler environment to Crimson's environment.
Note
On Windows, using --link with --switch does not always update instantly due to how CMD/PowerShell handles symlinks. Running crimson switch <import_version> will fix this.
Just like normal installs, import supports aliases, switching and setting the version as default.
Crimson allows you to iterate over installed versions using a test command as a condition. For example, crimson test -- shards build will test shards build on all installed versions. By default the versions are tested in descending order but can be ran in ascending or random order by specifying the --order flag.
If you only want to test a subset of versions then you can specify the --from flag with a version to start from and/or the --to flag with a version to stop at. Additionally, you can specify versions to include or exclude on top of this subset using the -i/--include and -e/--exclude flags respectively, which support multiple arguments (for example, crimson test -e master -e dev ...).
# test.cr
p ([] of Int32).insert_all(0, [1, 2, 3])❯ crimson test -e dev --from latest --to 1.12.2 -- crystal build test.cr --no-codegen
1.13.2 • Passed
1.13.1 • Passed
1.13.0 • Passed
1.12.2 • Failed
┃ Showing last frame. Use --error-trace for full trace.
┃
┃ In test.cr:3:17
┃
┃ 3 | p ([] of Int32).insert_all(0, [1, 2, 3])
┃ ^---------
┃ Error: undefined method 'insert_all' for Array(Int32)Removing Crystal versions is as simple as crimson remove <version> (or crimson rm), and you can use the alias in place of the version.
Crimson is designed to be like any other application versioning manager using standardised design patterns to ensure consistency and flexibility. It is intended for people that work with multiple versions of Crystal and/or need to ensure backwards compatibility for their projects. It is not intended to be a replacement for system package managers or other Crystal distribution sources (although you can use it for that if you wish).
- Fork it (https://github.com/crimson-crystal/crimson/fork)
- Create your feature branch (
git checkout -b my-new-feature) - Commit your changes (
git commit -am 'Add some feature') - Push to the branch (
git push origin my-new-feature) - Create a new Pull Request
- Devonte W - creator and maintainer
This repository is managed under the Mozilla Public License v2.
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