It’s been a while, but I thought it important to post an update to the wpupdate program I wrote to upgrade a whole mess of WordPress installs at one time. I took a cue from the program officially sponsored by WP, but think mine is much, much better.

Here are some of the features:

1. Specify a file with a list of svn WP installs, or update the current directory, or specify the directory to update on the command line
2. Use command flags or options. You can specify the program to update or switch, use tags or branches.
3. Automatically saves a copy of the svn update to a file so your terminal is not overflowing with text, but does output any conflicts that arise.
4. Automatically saves a backup copy of the wp-contents directory (just in case the update or switch screws something up).
5. Automatically saves a copy of the database, backing up only the tables used by the WP install (based off of the wp-config supplied table prefix).
6. Restores permissions to the original owner and group.

Anyhow, check out the new page devoted soley to this application: SVN WordPress Updater

License: Anyone is free to use this program however they want, as long as they give me due attribution. Also if you update or modify the program in any way, I need to know about it. That’s what free and open software is all about. Any updates should benefit us all.

I finally figured it all out, and got a working version of Zotero’s development on trunk for the past year in code_swarm.

Next, I need to find or make some cool electronic music to play while watching it.

[vimeo 2117995]

I spent way too long looking for MediaWiki’s version information. Most applications store the version info in a file or in the database. MediaWiki is a HUGE mess of code and database. I finally found it in a file. It’s in includes/DefaultSettings.php and is stored as a variable – wgVersion.  This is for post 1.3.7 versions of MediaWiki, perhaps even earlier versions.

I write this here because no amount of searching turned up this information. I found it through a series of lucky greps. So, to help out in Google searches:

where is MediaWiki’s version information stored?

locate MediaWiki’s version info

MediaWiki version file

MediaWiki version info