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Using Inko's version manager

Inko has its own version manager: ivm. Using ivm you can install and manage multiple versions of Inko. ivm is written in Rust.

Installing

ivm itself only requires Rust 1.68 or newer, but to build Inko itself you'll need to also meet the requirements listed in the installation guide.

From source

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/inko-lang/ivm.git
cd ivm
cargo build --release

The resulting executable is found in target/release/ivm.

If you are building a package of ivm, you can use the provided Makefile instead of cargo build:

make
make install

This process can be customised by setting the following Make variables:

  • DESTDIR: the directory to install files into when running make install.
  • PREFIX: the path prefix to use for all files, defaults to /usr. When combined with DESTDIR, the value of DESTDIR prefixes this value.

Using crates.io

ivm is available on crates.io, and you can install it as follows:

cargo install ivm

This installs the ivm executable in $HOME/.cargo/bin, where $HOME is your home directory. You need to add this to your shell's PATH if not done already. You also need to add the directory containing Inko executables to your path:

export PATH="$HOME/.cargo/bin:$HOME/.local/share/ivm/bin:$PATH"

set -x PATH $HOME/.cargo/bin $HOME/.local/share/ivm/bin $PATH

To update ivm, run the following:

cargo install ivm --force

Usage

To install a version (e.g. 0.10.0):

ivm install 0.10.0    # This will install version 0.10.0
ivm install latest    # This will install the latest available version

Tip

Make sure to set a default version after installing Inko, otherwise you have to use ivm run VERSION inko ... to use Inko.

To remove a version:

ivm remove 0.10.0    # This will remove version 0.10.0
ivm remove latest    # This will remove the latest _installed_ version

To list all installed versions:

ivm list

To list all available versions:

ivm known

To change the default Inko version:

ivm default 0.10.0

To remove any temporary data:

ivm clean

To run a command with a specific Inko version:

ivm run 0.10.0 inko --version    # This will run `inko --version` using Inko 0.10.0
ivm run latest inko

To remove all data of ivm (except the ivm executable itself):

ivm implode

For more information, run ivm --help.

Setting a default version

The default command is used to set a default Inko version to use. When set, ivm will create a symbolic link in its bin/ directory to the inko executable of the default version. By setting a default version you can just use inko ... instead of the much more verbose ivm run VERSION inko ....

For this to work the bin directory must be in your path, as covered in the installation instructions. If you aren't sure where that directory is located, run the following:

ivm show bin

This will print the path to the bin directory, which you can then add to your PATH variable.