Self Patching App Tutorial

In this tutorial, you will see how to add self patching support to a simple console app. This process can easily be applied to a GUI-based app, as well.

Video tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUwgsfYQKFo (legacy tutorial)

• create a console app project and add SimplePatchTool.dll as reference to it
• change Program.cs as follows:

using SimplePatchToolCore;
using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Threading;

namespace SPTSelfPatchingAppDemo
{
	class Program
	{
		private const int VERSION = 1;
		private const string VERSION_INFO_URL = "SEE: https://github.com/yasirkula/SimplePatchTool/wiki/Generating-versionInfoURL";
		private const string SELF_PATCHER_EXECUTABLE = "SelfPatcher.exe";

		static void Main( string[] args )
		{
			Console.WriteLine( "VERSION: " + VERSION );
			Console.WriteLine( "Checking for updates..." );

			SimplePatchTool patcher = new SimplePatchTool( Path.GetDirectoryName( PatchUtils.GetCurrentExecutablePath() ), VERSION_INFO_URL );
			CheckForUpdates( patcher );

			Console.ReadLine();
		}

		private static void CheckForUpdates( SimplePatchTool patcher )
		{
			if( patcher.CheckForUpdates( false ) ) // false: each file is checked one-by-one to see if the app is up-to-date
			{
				WaitForPatcher( patcher );

				if( patcher.Result == PatchResult.AlreadyUpToDate )
					Console.WriteLine( "App is up-to-date!" );
				else if( patcher.Result == PatchResult.Failed )
					Console.WriteLine( "Operation failed..." );
				else
				{
					Console.WriteLine( "An update is available! Proceed? (y/n)" );
					if( Console.ReadLine().ToLowerInvariant() == "y" )
						ApplyPatch( patcher );
				}
			}
			else
				Console.WriteLine( "Looks like SimplePatchTool is busy (SimplePatchTool.IsRunning)" );
		}

		private static void ApplyPatch( SimplePatchTool patcher )
		{
			if( patcher.Run( true ) ) // true: self patching
			{
				WaitForPatcher( patcher );

				if( patcher.Result == PatchResult.AlreadyUpToDate )
					Console.WriteLine( "App is already up-to-date!" );
				else if( patcher.Result == PatchResult.Failed )
					Console.WriteLine( "Operation failed..." );
				else
				{
					Console.WriteLine( "App will restart itself to finalize the update. Hit Enter to proceed..." );
					Console.ReadLine();

					if( !patcher.ApplySelfPatch( PatchUtils.GetDefaultSelfPatcherExecutablePath( SELF_PATCHER_EXECUTABLE ), PatchUtils.GetCurrentExecutablePath() ) )
					{
						Console.WriteLine( "Something went wrong" );
						FetchLogs( patcher );
					}
				}
			}
			else
				Console.WriteLine( "Looks like SimplePatchTool is busy (SimplePatchTool.IsRunning)" );
		}

		private static void WaitForPatcher( SimplePatchTool patcher )
		{
			while( patcher.IsRunning )
			{
				FetchLogs( patcher );
				Thread.Sleep( 300 );
			}

			FetchLogs( patcher );
		}

		private static void FetchLogs( SimplePatchTool patcher )
		{
			IOperationProgress progress = patcher.FetchProgress();
			while( progress != null )
			{
				Console.WriteLine( string.Concat( progress.Percentage, "% ", progress.ProgressInfo ) );
				progress = patcher.FetchProgress();
			}

			string log = patcher.FetchLog();
			while( log != null )
			{
				Console.WriteLine( log );
				log = patcher.FetchLog();
			}
		}
	}
}

• follow these steps and paste VersionInfo's url to the VERSION_INFO_URL constant
• create a project
• as this console app uses self patching, we need a self patcher: create a self patcher and put it inside the SelfPatcher directory of the project
• enter the name of the self patcher's executable to the SELF_PATCHER_EXECUTABLE constant
• create a subdirectory called 1.0 inside the Versions folder of the project
• build the console app and move the generated files into the 1.0 subdirectory
• follow these steps to create a patch (you can skip the Prerequisites)
• you've created your first patch, great! Now, we should create a second patch to test the patcher. First, make some changes to the console app (e.g. increment the value of VERSION)
• rebuild the console app and move its files to another subdirectory called 1.1 inside the Versions folder of the project
• create another patch
• if you launch the version 1.0 of your console app now, you'll see that it detects the 1.1 update and prompts you to update itself to that version, well done!