release.sh

release.sh generates an addon zip file from a Git, SVN, or Mercurial checkout.

release.sh works by creating a new project directory (.release by default), copying files from the checkout into the project directory, checking out external repositories then copying their files into the project directory, then moves subdirectories into the project root. The project directory is then zipped to create a distributable addon zip file which can also be uploaded to CurseForge, WoWInterface, Wago, and GitHub (as a release).

release.sh assumes that tags (Git annotated tags and SVN tags) are named for the version numbers for the project. It will identify if the HEAD is tagged and use that as the current version number. It will search back through parent commits for the previous tag and generate a changelog containing the commits since that tag.

Building with GitHub Actions

For a full example workflow, please check out the wiki page.

Example using options

- uses: BigWigsMods/packager@v2
  with:
    args: -p 1234 -w 5678 -a he54k6bL

What's new with v2

Support for multiple TOC files and multiple versions required completely reworking how the game version and game type was handled. The multiple build workflow that has become common for people that support multiple game types should continue to work as before, but I felt like it would be good to bump the version number so anyone explicitly using a v1 tag won't experience any surprises.

So what does this mean for you?

1. You only need to build a file once! Just create multiple TOC files, one for each supported game type, and game versions will be set from them on upload. So if you've already been dabbling with multiple TOC files and/or multiple versions, you no longer need to manually set the versions via -g or on the CurseForge website.

   Note: CurseForge still requires that a fallback TOC file exists. So if you support all three game types, you may as well leave the fallback TOC file as one of the game types instead of creating three game type specific ones.

2. If you are using multiple ## Interface-Type lines in your TOC file, you can now use the -S command line option or add enable-toc-creation: yes to your .pkgmeta file to automatically generate game type specific TOC files based on your existing preprocessing logic. The fallback TOC file will use the base interface value as it's version.

   ## Interface: 90200
   ## Interface-Classic: 11402
   ## Interface-BCC: 20503

   Splitting the above TOC file would end up with MyAddon_Vanilla.toc, MyAddon_TBC.toc, and MyAddon.toc (retail).

3. If you use build version keywords (e.g., @version-retail@ ... @end-version-retail@) for controlling what code blocks execute based on the build version, you need to switch to plain old Lua control statements. Fortunately, there are some constants set by Blizzard you can use for this. If you use these keywords in xml files, you will have to reorganize your includes in the appropriate TOC files.

Customizing the build

release.sh uses the TOC file to determine the package name for the project. You can also set the CurseForge project id (-p), the WoWInterface addon id (-w) or the Wago project id (-a) by adding the following to the TOC file:

## X-Curse-Project-ID: 1234
## X-WoWI-ID: 5678
## X-Wago-ID: he54k6bL

Your CurseForge project id can be found on the addon page in the "About Project" side box.

Your WoWInterface addon id is in the url for the addon, eg, the "5678" in https://wowinterface.com/downloads/info5678-MyAddon.

Your Wago project id can be found on the developer dashboard.

The PackageMeta file

release.sh can read a .pkgmeta file and supports the following directives. See the wiki page for more info.

• externals (Git, SVN, and Mercurial) Caveats: An external's .pkgmeta is only parsed for ignore and externals will not have localization keywords replaced.
• ignore
• changelog-title
• manual-changelog
• move-folders
• package-as
• enable-nolib-creation (defaults to no) Caveats: nolib packages will only be uploaded to GitHub and attached to a release. Unlike with the CurseForge packager, manually uploaded nolib packages will not be used by the client when users have enabled downloading libraries separately.
• enable-toc-creation (defaults to no) Create game type specific TOC files from your TOC file if you have multiple ## Interface-Type: lines.
• tools-used
• required-dependencies
• optional-dependencies
• embedded-libraries Note: All fetched externals will be marked as embedded, overriding any manually set relations in the pkgmeta.

You can also use a few directives for WoWInterface uploading.

• wowi-archive-previous : yes|no (defaults to yes) Archive the previous release.
• wowi-create-changelog : yes|no (defaults to yes) Generate a changelog using BBCode that will be set when uploading. A manual changelog will always be used instead if set in the .pkgmeta.
• wowi-convert-changelog : yes|no (defaults to yes) Convert a manual changelog in Markdown format to BBCode if you have pandoc installed; otherwise, the manual changelog will be used as-is. If set to no when using a generated changelog, Markdown will be used instead of BBCode. Note: Markdown support is experimental and needs to be requested on a per-project basis.

String replacements

release.sh supports the following repository substitution keywords when copying the files from the checkout into the project directory. See the wiki page for more info.

• @localization(locale="locale", format="format", ...)@
  • escape-non-ascii
  • handle-unlocalized
  • handle-subnamespaces="concat"
  • key
  • namespace
  • same-key-is-true
  • table-name
• @file-revision@
• @project-revision@
• @file-hash@
• @project-hash@
• @file-abbreviated-hash@
• @project-abbreviated-hash@
• @file-author@
• @project-author@
• @file-date-iso@
• @project-date-iso@
• @file-date-integer@
• @project-date-integer@
• @file-timestamp@
• @project-timestamp@
• @project-version@

Build type keywords

Specific keywords used in a comment at the start (@keyword@) and end (@end-keyword@) of a block of code can be used to conditionally run that code based on the build type. If the build type does not match, the block of code is comment out so line numbers do not change.

Supported keywords and when the code block will run:

• alpha: in untagged builds.
• debug: never. Code will only run when using an unpackaged source.
• do-not-package: never. Same as debug except removed from the packaged file.
• no-lib-strip: (not supported in Lua files) in any build other than a nolib build.
• retail,version-retail,version-classic,version-bcc: based on game version.

do-not-package is a bit special. Everything between the tags, including the tags themselves, will always be removed from the packaged file. This will cause the line numbers of subsequent lines to change, which can result in bug report line numbers not matching the source code. The typical usage is at the end of Lua files surrounding debugging functions and other code that end users should never see or execute.

All keywords except do-not-package can be prefixed with non- to inverse the logic. When doing this, the keywords should start and end a block comment as shown below.

More examples are available on the wiki page.

In Lua files

--@keyword@ and --@end-keyword@
turn into --[===[@keyword and --@end-keyword]===].

--[===[@non-keyword@ and --@end-non-keyword@]===]
turn into --@non-keyword@ and --@end-non-keyword@.

In XML files

Note: XML doesn't allow nested comments so make sure not to nest keywords. If you need to nest keywords, you can do so in the TOC instead.

<!--@keyword@--> and <!--@end-keyword@-->
turn into <!--@keyword and @end-keyword@-->.

<!--@non-keyword@ and @end-non-keyword@-->
turn into <!--@non-keyword@--> and <!--@end-non-keyword@-->.

In TOC files

The lines with #@keyword@ and #@end-keyword@ get removed, as well as every line in-between.

The lines with #@non-keyword@ and #@end-non-keyword@ get removed, as well as removing a '# ' at the beginning of each line in-between.

Changing the file name

release.sh uses the file name template "{package-name}-{project-version}{nolib}{classic}" for the addon zip file. This can be changed with the -n switch (release.sh -n "{package-name}-{project-version}").

These tokens are always replaced with their value:

• {package-name}
• {project-revision}
• {project-hash}
• {project-abbreviated-hash}
• {project-author}
• {project-date-iso}
• {project-date-integer}
• {project-timestamp}
• {project-version}
• {game-type}
• {release-type}

These tokens are "flags" and are conditionally shown prefixed with a dash based on the build type:

• {alpha}
• {beta}
• {nolib}
• {classic}

{classic} has some additional magic:

1. It will show as the non-retail build type, so either -classic or -bcc.
2. It will not be shown if "-classic" or "-bcc" is in the project version.
3. If it is included in the file name (it is by default) and #2 does not apply, it will also be appended to the file label (i.e., the name shown on CurseForge).

Building for multiple game versions

release.sh automatically detects what game version(s) the addon supports. You only need to run a build once and the file will be tagged with the appropriate versions when uploaded.

Multiple TOC files

You can create multiple TOC files, one for each supported game type, and release.sh will use them to set the build's game version.

If you have already been dabbling with multiple TOC files and/or multiple versions, you no longer need to manually set the versions via -g or on the CurseForge website.

Note: CurseForge still requires that a fallback TOC file exists (the TOC file with the same name as the addon directory). So if you support all three game types, you may as well leave the fallback TOC file as one of the game types instead of creating three game type specific ones.

Single TOC file

If you are using multiple ## Interface-Type lines in a single TOC file, you can now use the -S command line option or add enable-toc-creation: yes to your .pkgmeta file to automatically generate game type specific TOC files based on your existing preprocessing logic. The fallback TOC file will use the base interface value as it's version.

## Interface: 90200
## Interface-Classic: 11402
## Interface-BCC: 20503

Splitting the above TOC file would end up with MyAddon_Vanilla.toc, MyAddon_TBC.toc, and MyAddon.toc (retail).

If you use build version keywords (e.g., @version-retail@ ... @end-version-retail@) for controlling what code blocks execute based on the build version, you need to switch to plain old Lua control statements. Fortunately, there are some constants set by Blizzard you can use for this. If you use these keywords in xml files, you will have to reorganize your includes in the appropriate TOC files.

Single game version

As the game officially supports multiple game versions now, manually setting the version should be considered deprecated and only be used if the game version is not being detected correctly.

You can specify what version of the game you're targeting with the -g switch. You can use a specific version (release.sh -g 1.14.2), a list (release.sh -g "9.2.0,1.14.2") or the game type (release.sh -g classic). Using a game type will set the game version based on the appropriate TOC ## Interface value.

Building locally

The recommended way to include release.sh in a project is to:

1. Create a .release subdirectory in your top-level checkout.
2. Copy release.sh into the .release directory.
3. Ignore the .release subdirectory in .gitignore.
4. Run release.sh.

Usage

Usage: release.sh [options]
  -c               Skip copying files into the package directory.
  -d               Skip uploading.
  -e               Skip checkout of external repositories.
  -l               Skip @localization@ keyword replacement.
  -L               Only do @localization@ keyword replacement (skip upload to CurseForge).
  -o               Keep existing package directory, overwriting its contents.
  -s               Create a stripped-down "nolib" package.
  -S               Create a package supporting multiple game types from a single TOC file.
  -u               Use Unix line-endings.
  -z               Skip zip file creation.
  -t topdir        Set top-level directory of checkout.
  -r releasedir    Set directory containing the package directory. Defaults to "$topdir/.release".
  -p curse-id      Set the project id used on CurseForge for localization and uploading. (Use 0 to unset the TOC value)
  -w wowi-id       Set the addon id used on WoWInterface for uploading. (Use 0 to unset the TOC value)
  -a wago-id       Set the project id used on Wago Addons for uploading. (Use 0 to unset the TOC value)
  -g game-version  Set the game version to use for uploading.
  -m pkgmeta.yaml  Set the pkgmeta file to use.
  -n "{template}"  Set the package zip file name and upload label. Use "-n help" for more info.

Usage: release.sh -n "{template}"
  Set the package zip file name and upload file label. There are several string
  substitutions you can use to include version control and build type infomation in
  the file name and upload label.

  The default file name is "{package-name}-{project-version}{nolib}{classic}".
  The default upload label is "{project-version}{classic}{nolib}".

  To set both, seperate with a ":", i.e, "{file template}:{label template}".
  If either side of the ":" is blank, the default will be used. Not including a ":"
  will set the file name template, leaving upload label as default.

  Tokens: {package-name}{project-revision}{project-hash}{project-abbreviated-hash}
          {project-author}{project-date-iso}{project-date-integer}{project-timestamp}
          {project-version}{game-type}{release-type}

  Flags:  {alpha}{beta}{nolib}{classic}

  Tokens are always replaced with their value. Flags are shown prefixed with a dash
  depending on the build type.

Uploading

release.sh uses following environment variables for uploading:

• CF_API_KEY - a CurseForge API token, required for the CurseForge API to fetch localization and upload files.
• WOWI_API_TOKEN - a WoWInterface API token, required for uploading to WoWInterface.
• WAGO_API_TOKEN - a Wago Addons API token, required for uploading to Wago Addons.
• GITHUB_OAUTH - a GitHub personal access token, required for uploading to GitHub.

release.sh will attempt to load environment variables from a .env file in the topdir or current working directory. You can also edit release.sh and enter the tokens near the top of the file.

Dependencies

release.sh is mostly POSIX-compatible, so it should run in any Unix-like environment provided the following are available:

• bash >= 4.3
• awk
• grep
• sed
• curl
• zip
• version control software as needed:
  • git >= 2.13.0
  • subversion >= 1.7.0
  • mercurial >= 3.9.0 (pre-3.9 will have issues with secure connections)
• jq >= 1.5 (when uploading)
• pandoc >= 1.19.2 (optional)