A script to quickly switch between Solidity compiler versions.

It is becoming increasingly hard to run older versions of solc, particularly on macOS since there are no official binary releases. Versions prior to 0.5.0 no longer compile on macOS and are not maintained. This is a problem because older Ethereum contracts no longer compile on modern versions of Solidity. solc-select is a utility that allows one to run any legacy version of Solidity simply by setting an environment variable.

docker pull trailofbits/solc-select
docker run --read-only -i --rm --entrypoint='/bin/sh' trailofbits/solc-select:latest -c 'cat /usr/bin/install.sh' | bash -e

This will install solc globally. If solc is already installed, you will be prompted to overwrite it.

To install solc to a different directory, run the docker command or the install script, with the environment variable PREFIX set; solc will be installed to ${PREFIX}/bin/solc.

Alternatively, manually copy the special solc script to your desired location.

git clone https://github.com/crytic/solc-select.git
./solc-select/scripts/install.sh

This will install solc into ~/.solc-select/, so you have to add it to the PATH variable. Add this line, replacing USERNAME with your username, to your .bashrc or equivalent:

export PATH=/home/USERNAME/.solc-select:$PATH

The desired version of solc can be set with the use command. By default, the latest version is used.

$ solc --version
solc, the solidity compiler commandline interface
Version: 0.5.2+commit.1df8f40c.Linux.g++
$ solc use 0.4.24
solc, the solidity compiler commandline interface
Version: 0.4.24+commit.e67f0147.Linux.g++

In special scenarios the current version can also be overwritten with the SOLC_VERSION environment variable.

$ solc --version
solc, the solidity compiler commandline interface
Version: 0.4.24+commit.e67f0147.Linux.g++
$ SOLC_VERSION=0.5.2 solc --version
solc, the solidity compiler commandline interface
Version: 0.5.2+commit.1df8f40c.Linux.g++

You can list all available versions with the special --versions argument:

$ solc --versions
0.4.11
0.4.12
0.4.13
0.4.14
0.4.15
0.4.16
0.4.17
0.4.18
0.4.19
0.4.20
0.4.21
0.4.22
0.4.23
0.4.24
0.4.25
0.5.0
0.5.1
0.5.2
0.5.3
0.5.4
0.5.5
nightly

Once installed, simply run

solc --upgrade

to automatically upgrade solc-select. This will automatically pull the latest Docker image (or repo source, depending on your OS) and upgrade the local solc script, if necessary. The DockerHub image for solc-select will automatically update every time Solidity is updated, which will typically be nightly.

$ git clone https://github.com/trailofbits/solc-select.git
$ cd solc-select
$ docker build -t trailofbits/solc-select:latest .
$ bin/solc --install

Feel free to stop by our Slack channel for help on using or extending solc-select.

solc-select is licensed and distributed under the AGPLv3 license. Contact us if you’re looking for an exception to the terms.