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How does Ketarin check the installed version?


Kacey
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Hi all

I like to run portable software as much as I can. So whenever possible I download a .zip version of the software, and extract it to it's install folder and just run it from there.

Using Ketarin to check for updates, I don't understand how it knows what the current version of the software already in the install folder is before deciding an update is available? I have everything setup so far and working great as far as downloading the latest .zip, extracting it to the folder I want, deleting some things I don't want, then deleting the new .zip (to save space; I'm kinda OCD about clutter :)), but I don't see anywhere that tells me, or points to, how it gets the current version to check against?

i.e. it's not pointing to "code.exe" to extract the version number in the install folder, to compare against the version found at the URL I use to check the latest version.

As of right now, even after doing a fresh update (and I manually check to make sure it did in fact update), then checking in Ketarin again for an update to it, it always says there's an update available. To me this seems to mean Ketarin isn't actually checking the "installed" version first?

I'm brand spanking new to Ketarin, and have read the Wiki, but still confused. Can anyone please help?

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Unless you configure the option on the Advanced tab named "Use the following variable as indicator for changes" Ketarin will use its native HTTP header parsing capability to determine if the downloaded file would be newer/different than the last file it downloaded.

Be aware that this does not work for some sites, so you should get in the habit early and parse your own version numbers from the source website so you have better control over whether the file is actually newer.

For example, I download many ISO files for different operating systems and the last thing you want is to download an extra 8 copies of Fedora every time you run Ketarin because the Fedora site uses a new ETag and timestamp with every request, effectively breaking cache controls. Downloading an extra 40 GB of Fedora spins a couple times a day is a good way to waste bandwidth. Using a version variable which parses the changelog for the current release version, and "version" in the "Use the following variable as indicator for changes" field avoids this problem very nicely.

Be aware that there's also an Advanced option to "ignore file information" that needs to be checked if you will be deleting the actual downloaded files after extracting their contents. If you don't have this option enabled then Ketarin will default to correcting the missing files by re-downloading them.

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1 hour ago, shawn said:

Be aware that there's also an Advanced option to "ignore file information" that needs to be checked if you will be deleting the actual downloaded files after extracting their contents. If you don't have this option enabled then Ketarin will default to correcting the missing files by re-downloading them.

AHA!! That's what I was missing! I had the "ignore (etc.)" option unchecked. After checking it, and then clicking "Check for update" twice in a row (the first time it still said there was an update available for some reason) it now says it's up to date. Thank you!

Just for the sake of learning, what exactly is it 'checking' for the currently installed version? Does it arbitrarily choose a .exe file from that folder and check it's version?

 

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19 hours ago, floele said:

Ketarin doesn't actually check which version is installed, it simply updates when a new version is downloaded.

That part confuses me a bit, lol.

When you 'check for update', if it's not doing any sort of comparison with what's already there, how does it 'know' that there's actually an 'update' available?

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 7/28/2019 at 10:32 AM, floele said:

Ketarin doesn't actually check which version is installed, it simply updates when a new version is downloaded.

Not directly. However, if the option to "use the following variable as indicator for changes" is enabled with your version variable, then it checks the parsed "version" against your version variable and will only download if the version is different.

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