asdf flutter version management

Without a doubt, Flutter is a framework that is constantly changing. And as developers, we need to be ready and have more than one version installed at the same time.

One of the most famous solutions for this problem is Flutter Version Manager by leofarias. I personally used this solution for several months, but I always had some problems with it.

A few weeks ago I came across asdf, which according to its documentation:

asdf is a tool version manager. All tool version definitions are contained within one file (.tool-versions) which you can check in to your project's Git repository to share with your team, ensuring everyone is using the exact same versions of tools.

In a nutshell, it allows us to handle multiple versions of different tools (which I found interesting as it could be useful for other tools like: cocoapods,ruby,node.js, etc.)

How to use asdf with flutter?

Official docs: here

Install asdf

# MacOS with Homebrew
brew install asdf

# Linux
# Check: https://asdf-vm.com/guide/getting-started.html#_1-install-dependencies

ASDF Flutter plugin

Once asdf is installed, we have to install the asdf flutter plugin

# Installs flutter-plugin for asdf
asdf plugin-add flutter

Github Repo: asdf flutter plugin

install/uninstall a version

# List all available flutter versions
asdf list all flutter

Preview:

carbon

# Install a version 
asdf install flutter <VERSION_NUMBER>

# Example:
asdf install flutter 2.5.2-stable

# to uninstall
asdf uninstall flutter <VERSION_NUMBER>

Local and global version

# Defines a global flutter version to be used 
asdf global flutter <VERSION_NUMBER>

# Defines a local flutter version to be used 
asdf local flutter <VERSION_NUMBER>

Export to $PATH

To have access to the currently selected version, you need to export asdf flutter to $PATH.In my case, I added the following line to my /.zshrc.

export PATH="$PATH:$(asdf where flutter)/bin"
export PATH="$PATH":"$HOME/.pub-cache/bin"

With this you will have access to the flutter and dart commands from any terminal 👍.

... and dart?

dart is included by default with the asdf flutter plugin. However, sometimes you need a different dart version. This can be accomplished by running the same commands mentioned above, but substituting flutter with dart.

# Install asdf-dart
asdf plugin-add dart https://github.com/patoconnor43/asdf-dart.git

# More info in: https://github.com/PatOConnor43/asdf-dart

As always...

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Elian Ortega