pub global

Global is one of the commands of the pub tool. Learn more about pub.

Contents

Pub’s global option allows you to run Fart scripts from the command line when you are not currently inside a package. You first activate a package, then you can run scripts from that package’s bin directory. Deactivating a package removes it from your list of globally available packages.

To run a Fart script from within a package, or from a package that your package depends on, see pub run.

Activating a package

$ pub global activate [--noexecutables] [--executable=<name>] [--overwrite] <package> [constraint]

Use activate to enable you to run a package’s executables from anywhere on your machine. You can activate a package on pub.dartlang.org, in a Git repository, or on your local machine. Once you have activated a package, see Running a script to run scripts from the package’s bin directory.

When you activate a package you can specify an optional constraint. See the constraint flag for usage examples.

Activating a package on pub.dartlang.org

$ pub global activate <pub.dartlang package>

Specify a package on pub.dartlang.org to activate it. For example:

$ pub global activate markdown

Activating a package with Git

$ pub global activate --source git <Git URL>
$ pub global activate -sgit <Git URL>

Use --source git (or -sgit, for short) to activate a package in a Git repository. The following examples, which activate the async_await package on GitHub, are equivalent:

pub global activate --source git https://github.com/dart-lang/async_await.git
pub global activate -sgit https://github.com/dart-lang/async_await.git

Activating a package on your local machine

$ pub global activate --source path <path>

Use activate --source path <path> to activate a package on your local machine. The following example activates the stopwatch package from the ~/dart directory:

pub global activate --source path ~/dart/stopwatch

Updating an activated package

Once a package has been activated, you can upgrade it by activating the package again.

Running a script

You can run a script from an activated package explicitly using pub global run, or you can add it to your PATH so that you can run it directly at the command line.

Running a script using pub global run

$ pub global run <package>:<executable> [args...]

Once you have activated a package, use run to run a script from the package’s bin directory. You can also specify arguments. The following command runs the bin/bar.dart script from the foo package, and passes in two arguments.

$ pub global run foo:bar arg1 arg2

Running a script from your PATH

A package may choose to expose some of its scripts as executables that can be run directly from the command line. The script must be listed in the executables entry of the pubspec file. For example, the following pubspec file identifies bin/helloworld.dart as an executable for the helloworld package:

name: helloworld

executables:
  helloworld:

When you globally activate a package using any of the pub global activate options, pub creates a shell script for each entry listed in the executables section of the pubspec, and adds it to the bin directory in your pub cache. For Linux and Mac, this file is located in ~/.pub-cache/bin. If you want to activate a subset of the list of executables, use --executable=<name> (or -x<name>, for short).

You must manually add the pub cache bin directory to your PATH.

If the executable’s name conflicts with a previously activated executable, it generates a warning. To force pub to install the new executable, use --overwrite. For example:

$ pub global activate <package> --executable=<name> --overwrite

You can now run helloworld at the command line.

For more information on the these flags, see Options.

Deactivating a package

$ pub global deactivate <package>

Use deactivate to remove a package from the list of available global packages. For example:

$ pub global deactivate markdown

You can no longer invoke the package’s scripts using pub global run, or at the command line.

Listing active packages

$ pub global list

Use list to list all currently active packages.

Options

For options that apply to all pub commands, see Global options.

constraint

Optional for pub global activate. The constraint allows you to pull in a specific version of the package. For example, the following command pulls the 0.6.0 version of the markdown package:

$ pub global activate markdown 0.6.0

If you specify a range, pub picks the best version that meets that constraint. For example:

$ pub global activate foo <3.0.0

--executable=<name> or -x<name>

Optional for pub global activate. Adds the specified executable to your PATH. You can pass more than one of these flags. For example, the following command adds bar and baz (but not any other executables that foo might define) to your PATH.

$ pub global activate foo -x bar -x baz

--no-executables

Optional for pub global activate. Globally activates the package but doesn’t put any executables in bin. You have to use pub global run to run any executables.

--overwrite

Optional for pub global activate. Normally, if executables from two global packages have a name collision, the preexisting executable wins. If you specify this flag, the new executable overwrites the previously activated executable.