Versioning Rtools ARP entries
On 3/13/23 17:57, Tomas Kalibera wrote:
On 3/13/23 17:31, Daniel Possenriede wrote:
Hi, If I am not mistaken, all Rtools 4.2 (and 4.3) revisions have the same ARP [1] entries, i.e. all report version 4.2.0.1 (or 4.3.0.1). This makes it difficult to determine the installed version (is it possible to determine the installed revision?) and impossible for tools like winget [2] to update Rtools to the latest revision, AFAICT. Would it be possible to track the version in the installer [3] for future Rtools releases again, like it used to be in Rtools 4.0 [4]?
Well the thing is that once you install Rtools 42/43, you can then upgrade it internally (without Windows knowing). You can upgrade the Msys2 part, or the MXE part, or both. The MXE part (customized for Rtools) does have a single version number, which can be found in the installation. The Msys2 part doesn't, afaik. See e.g. "Upgrading Rtools43" in https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/howto-R-devel.html for how to upgrade and how to find out the current version number of the MXE part. So, right, I could e.g. add a non-decreasing unique version to the build of the installer (e.g. based on that from the SVN where it lives and the MXE part version originally included), but I doubt how useful that would be, given that a particular installation can be upgraded/modified by the user. It could actually be misleading. Note Rtools40 also could be updated by the user internally.
Hi Daniel, I've extended the version information in a testing version of an update of Rtools43, more below, but first with some explanation of how the versioning works. A version of an installed program in Windows is stored in the registry as "Display version": this is shown, together with "Display name" in the "Add/Remove programs menu" and it is used by tools such as winget to determine the version of an installed application (so e.g. also in "winget list"). An installer in Windows has in its meta-data has a "Product version" and a "File version" - one can see them in the Windows explorer via "Properties/Details". This can be set also for other files, not only for .EXEs of installers.? The distinction for general files is that "File version" refers to the individual file and "Product version" (shared for many files) to the application. The distinction for installers is usually that "File version" refers to the installer, but "Product version" to the application. A Windows installer may set the display version and display name for the application it is installing, usually at the end. Many installers, including that of Rtools, don't do that explicitly, and a "Product version" from the installer meta-data is used, instead, for the display version. A "Product name" is used for the display name. In Inno Setup, used by R and Rtools, "Product version" is given by "AppVersion", "File version" by "VersionInfoVersion", and "Product name" by "UninstallDisplayName" (there are also some rules to take these values from other entries when not specified, more in Inno Setup documentation). Historically, Rtools installer used two-component product version, e.g. "4.2" or "4.0". Therefore, winget could offer an upgrade from say Rtools40 Rtools42, but not between individual version of Rtools40 or Rtool42. The changes in file version you referred to in [4] didn't make a difference, because the "product version" stayed the same. In the testing version of Rtools43, I've added one more component to the product version, which is the version of the toolchain+libraries (e.g. 4.3.5548). So, one can now see the version of the toolchain+libraries in the "Add/Remove programs" list, and winget could (be made to) support upgrades within say Rtools43. Winget registry is maintained independently of R/Rtools, so it is up to those maintainer if they do that or not, but it should now be easy since product version has the information. I've also extended the file version to have four components, e.g. 4.3.5550.5548, where the last component is the version of the scripts to build the installer. This corresponds to version in the file name, e.g. rtools43-5550-5548.exe. The original file name is now also part of the meta-data. When one manually upgrades the toolchain+libraries in an existing Rtools43 installation, the version information stored in the registry should be updated and the documentation will say how to do that (how to change the registry accordingly). Best Tomas
Tomas
Thanks! Daniel [1] https://github.com/microsoft/winget-pkgs/blob/master/FAQ.md#what-is-an-arp-entry [2] https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli [3] https://svn.r-project.org/R-dev-web/trunk/WindowsBuilds/winutf8/ucrt3/rtools/rtools64.iss [4] https://github.com/r-windows/rtools-installer/commit/7f23f0d0442d72922014ec4082c8bdd437364cef
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