Oh Dear

[Adam D. Ruppe]

On Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 03:28:43PM -0500, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
> >Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> >>Is everything automated such that whenever you release the installer 
> >>will be in good shape?
> >
> >Of course not!
> 
> What steps do we need to take to automate the process?
> 
> Andrei


Here's an idea: make it download d1-latest.zip* and d2-latest.zip. Then,
on the server, make those names redirect to whatever the latest actually is,
using a symlink or a HTTP redirect header.

* Or .php, see below.

My preference would be the HTTP redirect, so you see the correct filename
before the download begins; you could differentiate between the different
versions.

It looks like you have PHP installed on the Digital Mars .com server. This
could be done in just a few lines of that language:

=====
<?php
	header("Location: dmd-1.x.zip");
?>
=====
Then, instead of fetching d1-latest.zip, fetch d1-latest.php.



The script that publishes the new release could them simply overwrite those
php files telling the new file location.


I put it up on my server so you can see what it is like to the user:

http://arsdnet.net/latest.php

Notice how it prompts you to download file.zip automatically.



Granted, going with this, the installer's downloader would need to
understand the http location header, but if you are using a http library,
it probably already does. And if not, it isn't terribly difficult to code
it up yourself.


This shouldn't require much changes to the way things are done, and would
offer a nice generic place for people to fetch the new things.


-- 
Adam D. Ruppe
http://arsdnet.net