Improve error/warning when `brew install` refuses to install a formula from a tap with the same name as an already installed keg about brew HOT 7 OPEN

Apologies for the confusion @9999years, this issue should not have been reopened yet.

I agree the documentation could be improved here but I don't think this issue as-is is the best way of describing the problem that needs addressed.

@9999years are you ok if I rework the original issue body to describe the (new) problem(s) that should be fixed here or would you rather a new issue is opened that is not attributed to you? Thanks!

from brew.

I assumed that the tap name serves as a namespace to disambiguate the two casks and allow them to coexist.

It allows them to co-exist as a distinct installable items but it does not allow for both of them to be installed at the same time. This applies to both formulae and casks.

You can see that formulae are installed to $HOMEBREW_PREFIX/Cellar/<name> and that name is not a fully-qualified name. Similarly for casks: $HOMEBREW_PREFIX/Caskroom/<name>.

from brew.

As @Bo98 said. This is a WONTFIX, unfortunately, it's baked too hard into the Homebrew internals to realistically ever change it. The best workaround is to rename the formulae in your tap.

from brew.

Hm, I think it's a fine constraint to not allow two formulae with the same name to be installed at once, but I think the error message should indicate that — "a formula with the same name from tap ... is installed".

Also, I think we should have some callouts to this fact in the Homebrew documentation, which currently don't indicate that this is an issue.

from brew.

I agree this should be better documented somewhere and the error message could be improved as well.

from brew.

Feel free to rework the issue body, the template seemed really strict so I didn't want to "break the rules"

from brew.

Thanks @9999years, done now!

from brew.