Package Information File

File sections | Accessing the PIF contents | Sample package information file

The package information file used by Tarma WebUpdate is a text file in Windows .ini format that stores version information about the packages. During a web update this file is retrieved, its contents are interpreted to see if updates are necessary, and if they are, the actual package installers are retrieved and executed.

Some tips:

• The version number format a.b.c.d is interpreted from most (a) to least (d) significant. Be careful about correctly specifying the version number; for example, 1.8.0.0 is earlier (older) than 1.60.0.0
• Many Internet servers are case-sensitive. Therefore, be sure that you specify the InstallerPath (see below) with the correct lettercase. Do not use spaces or characters outside the low-ASCII range (32..127).
• Some Internet servers refuse to return a file unless it has a known and approved file name extension. Therefore, we suggest that you use .txt rather than .ini as the file name extension for the package information file.

Tip: The easiest way to generate a package information file that describes your application and its installer is to use the Generate TWU update file option on the Build - Advanced page of your installation package.

File sections

A package information file must contain the following sections.

[TarmaWebUpdate]

This section is used to identify Tarma WebUpdate package information files. It declares the TWU version format, plus a list of the packages that appear in the file. Each declared package must appear as a separate section elsewhere in the package information file.

This section contains the following keys:

[package name]

For each declared package, a corresponding package section must appear in the package information file. Each package section describes a single package. A package information file must contain at least one package description, but it may contain several. The packages in a package file may be related (for example, through dependencies), or they may be unrelated if you want to use a single package information file for several products. After downloading and parsing the PIF (see TWUGetPIF), the data are available as a TWUPackageData objects through calls to TWUGetPackage.

This section contains the following keys:

Accessing the PIF contents

Because package information files follow the Windows .ini format, you can use Win32 functions such as GetPrivateProfileInt and GetPrivateProfileString to read portions of the file. The best place to process PIF contents is as part of an event callback function, in particular the following events:

You can use this as follows in your code:

URESULT MyCallback(TWUHANDLE hSession, int nEventCode,
    const TCHAR *pszEventMsg, UINT64 ulProgress,
    UINT64 ulTotal, LPARAM lCookie)
{
    TCHAR szBuffer[256];

    switch (nEventCode)
    {
    case TWU_CBEVENT_PIF_STARTPACKAGE:
        if (GetPrivateProfileString(GetEventArg(pszEventMsg, 1),
            _T("MyKey"), NULL, szBuffer, __countof(szBuffer),
            GetEventArg(pszEventMsg, 0)) > 0)
        {
            ...do stuff with szBuffer...
        }
        break;
    }
    return ERROR_SUCCESS;
}

Sample package information file

[TarmaWebUpdate]
Version=1
Packages=tin2,tin3,winsizer

[tin2]
ProductCode=InstallMate
Version=2.99.2185.0
DisplayName=Tarma QuickInstall 2
DisplayVersion=2.99.2185 (24 December 2005)
NewsURL=https://tarma.com/products/tin2/history.htm
InstallerPath=tin2.exe
InstallerArgs=
DownloadSize=1400560

[tin3]
ProductCode={760C70C3-ABE2-4F51-89D3-0FA2C43E8F51}
Version=3.0.2186.0
DisplayName=InstallMate
DisplayVersion=3.0.2186 Beta (25 December 2005)
NewsURL=https://tarma.com/products/tin3/history.htm
InstallerPath=tin3beta.exe
InstallerArgs=
DownloadSize=2756408

[winsizer]
ProductCode=WinSizer
Version=1.41.2086.0
DisplayName=WinSizer
DisplayVersion=1.41.2086 (16 September 2005)
NewsURL=https://tarma.com/products/winsizer/index.htm
InstallerPath=WinSizerSetup.exe
InstallerArgs=
DownloadSize=103368