Installation and upgrade processes

Elefant provides a simple method of tracking the install/upgrade status for each app. If an app's install handler needs to be run, you will see it highlighted in the Tools menu like this:

Click to install

A similar notice will appear if an app's upgrade handler needs to be run.

How it works

In the [Admin] block of your app's config.php, you can specify the version of your app, as well as the install and upgrade handlers, like this:

[Admin]

name = Myapp
version = 1.0
handler = myapp/admin
install = myapp/install
upgrade = myapp/upgrade

Elefant tracks which versions of which apps have been installed. If an app is not tracked, then its install handler has not yet been run. If it has, but the version number in its config.php is greater than the one Elefant has tracked, then the upgrade handler needs to be run.

The install handler runs after the files have been installed into the apps folder, and is meant to perform tasks like creating any new database tables used by the app.

When the install handler is finished, it marks itself as installed like this:

$this->mark_installed ($this->app, Appconf::get ($this->app, 'Admin', 'version'));

Similarly, the upgrade handler doesn't install the updated source files, but rather performs additional maintenance tasks such as updating the database schema or clearing cached data.

When the upgrade handler is finished, it calls the same method above to mark the current version as installed.

Install handler

Here is a commented example of a complete install handler script. For a typical app that only needs to create new database tables for itself, this is all you should need.

<?php

// keep unauthorized users out
$this->require_acl ('admin', $this->app);

// set the layout
$page->layout = 'admin';

// get the version and check if the app installed
$version = Appconf::get ($this->app, 'Admin', 'version');
$current = $this->installed ($this->app, $version);

if ($current === true) {
    // app is already installed and up-to-date, stop here
    $page->title = __ ('Already installed');
    printf ('<p><a href="/%s">%s</a>', Appconf::get ($this->app, 'Admin', 'handler'), __ ('Continue'));
    return;

} elseif ($current !== false) {
    // earlier version found, redirect to upgrade handler
    $this->redirect ('/' . Appconf::get ($this->app, 'Admin', 'upgrade'));
}

$page->title = sprintf (
    '%s: %s',
    __ ('Installing App'),
    Appconf::get ($this->app, 'Admin', 'name')
);

// grab the database driver and begin the transaction
$conn = conf ('Database', 'master');
$driver = $conn['driver'];
DB::beginTransaction ();

// parse the database schema into individual queries
$file = 'apps/' . $this->app . '/conf/install_' . $driver . '.sql';
$sql = sql_split (file_get_contents ($file));

// execute each query in turn
foreach ($sql as $query) {
    if (! DB::execute ($query)) {
        // show error and rollback on failures
        printf (
            '<p>%s</p><p class="visible-notice">%s: %s</p><p>%s</p>',
            __ ('Install failed.'),
            __ ('Error'),
            DB::error ()
        );
        DB::rollback ();
        return;
    }
}

// commit transaction and mark the app installed
DB::commit ();
$this->mark_installed ($this->app, $version);

printf ('<p><a href="/%s">%s</a>', Appconf::get ($this->app, 'Admin', 'handler'), __ ('Done.'));

Upgrade handler

Here is a commented example of a complete upgrade handler script. The script will install any database schema changes that it finds under your app's conf folder. It assumes the naming convention conf/upgrade_{$version}_{$driver}.sql, where {$version} is the new version number only (e.g., 1.2.1 for 1.2.1-stable, leaving out the stability text) and {$driver} is the database driver (found in the global site configuration).

<?php

// keep unauthorized users out
$this->require_acl ('admin', $this->app);

// set the layout
$page->layout = 'admin';

// get the version and check if the app installed
$version = Appconf::get ($this->app, 'Admin', 'version');
$current = $this->installed ($this->app, $version);

if ($current === true) {
    // app is already installed and up-to-date, stop here
    $page->title = __ ('Already up-to-date');
    printf ('<p><a href="/%s">%s</a>', Appconf::get ($this->app, 'Admin', 'handler'), __ ('Home'));
    return;
}

$page->title = sprintf (
    '%s: %s',
    __ ('Upgrading App'),
    Appconf::get ($this->app, 'Admin', 'name')
);

// grab the database driver
$conn = conf ('Database', 'master');
$driver = $conn['driver'];

// get the base new version and current version for comparison
$base_version = preg_replace ('/-.*$/', '', $version);
$base_current = preg_replace ('/-.*$/', '', $current);

// find upgrade scripts to apply
$files = glob ('apps/' . $this->app . '/conf/upgrade_*_' . $driver . '.sql');
$apply = array ();
foreach ($files as $k => $file) {
    if (preg_match ('/^apps\/' . $this->app . '\/conf\/upgrade_([0-9\.-]+)_' . $driver . '\.sql$/', $file, $regs)) {
        if (version_compare ($regs[1], $base_current, '>') && version_compare ($regs[1], $base_version, '<=')) {
            $apply[$regs[1]] = $file;
        }
    }
}

// begin the transaction
DB::beginTransaction ();

// apply the upgrade scripts
foreach ($apply as $ver => $file) {
    // parse the database schema into individual queries
    $sql = sql_split (file_get_contents ($file));

    // execute each query in turn
    foreach ($sql as $query) {
        if (! DB::execute ($query)) {
            // show error and rollback on failures
            printf (
                '<p>%s</p><p class="visible-notice">%s: %s</p>',
                __ ('Upgrade failed on version %s. Rolling back changes.', $ver),
                __ ('Error'),
                DB::error ()
            );
            DB::rollback ();
            return;
        }
    }

    // add any custom upgrade logic here
}

// commit the transaction
DB::commit ();

// mark the new version installed
$this->mark_installed ($this->app, $version);

printf ('<p><a href="/%s">%s</a>', Appconf::get ($this->app, 'Admin', 'handler'), __ ('Done.'));

These install/upgrade handlers will also be generated for you if you use the CRUD generator in the command line tool to generate your app.

For more complex database migrations, check out the Migrations app.

Back: Sharing your apps

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This documentation was generated by the Elefant Documentation Project. We're always open to new contributions *wink* *wink*