sox --version is missing version number on macOS

[RogueOneEcho]

Output of brew config

N/A

Output of brew doctor

N/A

Description of issue

I initially was going to post this as a reproducible bug on https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core but it said:

If you cannot truthfully check these boxes" open a discussion at https://github.com/orgs/Homebrew/discussions instead.

I observed this via CI runners on macOS (GitHub Actions macos-15 and macos-15-intel), not local testing.

Problem

I'm using homebrew to install sox and then extracting the version number from the sox --version command.

My CI/CD fails for macOS and it appears to be there's a known issue with sox --version on macOS:

https://sourceforge.net/p/sox/patches/104/

Running sox --version on macOS outputs an empty version number:

$ sox --version
sox:      SoX v

Expected output (as seen on Linux):

$ sox --version
sox:      SoX v14.4.2

Cause

The issue is explained in the upstream repo:
https://sourceforge.net/p/sox/patches/104/

And fixed in sox_ng:
https://git.kaki87.net/sox_ng/sox_ng/issues/159

Proposed Fix

The formula already contains a few patches, so it wouldn't be unprecedented to apply a patch for this issue as well

https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/be180d81e5e844a66dccf800c22e892be2bf6034/Formula/s/sox.rb#L40-L53

I'm not familiar with C or macOS so wouldn't provide the fix myself but it should be easy for somebody who is.

[cho-m]

Is there any reason you can't use sox_ng instead (https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/sox_ng#default)?

EDIT: Noting that it is likely that sox will be replaced by sox_ng given latter does meet our fork policy¹, i.e. Arch, Debian and Gentoo decided to replace it.

Footnotes

1. https://docs.brew.sh/Acceptable-Formulae#not-a-fork-usually ↩

[RogueOneEcho]

Thanks for your response. You sent me down a very long rabbit hole adopting SoX_ng.

RE: Fork policy

Fork criteria:

We will not add new formulae using forks unless at least one of the following is true:

• the fork has been designated the official successor in the original source repository (e.g. in the README) or in a publicly verifiable way by the original author (e.g. in an issue or pull request comment)

❌ Not official, but does have clear public interest as the successor.

• the fork has been used as the replacement by at least two other major distributions (e.g. Debian, Fedora, Arch, Gentoo, not smaller Linux distributions that are not widely used)

✅ Both Arch and Gentoo have replaced sox with SoX_ng. Full details in the SoX_ng docs

The fork must still meet all the other acceptable formulae requirements (including those of e.g. popularity and self-submission).

Criteria for "Niche (or self-submitted) stuff":

• be stable (e.g. not declared “unstable” or “beta” by upstream)

✅ Yes, evidenced by adoption by arch and gentoo.

• be maintainable (i.e. the new formula must be a stable release that works without patching on all Homebrew-supported OS versions and has no outstanding and unpatched security vulnerabilities)

✅ Yes, regular release cycle vast improvement over the patching required for the unmaintained sox package.

⏳ However, I did run into one performance degradation issue which the maintainers have a plan to resolve.

• Personally, I'd wait until this is resolved before proceeding with the fork replacement.

• be known (e.g. GitHub repositories should have >=30 forks, >=30 watchers or >=75 stars)

❔ It's a codeberg project so naturally going to have fewer forks, watchers, and stars because fewer people have codeberg accounts. Therefore I'd say the "there may be exceptions to these rules" should apply:

Currently:

• 5 watch
• 32 star
• 7 fork

• be used by someone other than the author (e.g. someone other than the author submitted the pull request or opened an issue with us or them to add it to Homebrew)

✅ Yes, evidenced by adoption by arch and gentoo.

Also adopted as preferred dependency by my project caesura.

• have a homepage (e.g. somewhere on the internet, can be a GitHub repository with a README, which can be accessed in a browser to learn about the project)

✅ Yes, Codeberg repo: https://codeberg.org/sox_ng/sox_ng