WordPress plug-ins and svn:externals

So last week I decided to play with the post-commit hook in Subversion which allows you to easily update your WordPress install after committing changes to your repository. After some trial and error this works perfectly. One issue you may run into with WordPress when it’s committed to SVN is using the auto-update plug-in function.

Committing your plug-ins to SVN tends to break this (very cool) auto-update functionality. SVN adds a hidden “.svn” directory to each directory you commit. WordPress auto-update tries to delete the updating plug-ins folder before downloading and extracting the new version into the “wp-content/plugins directory”. WordPress isn’t able to delete the “.svn” directories so the auto update process fails, leaving you without the plug-in you were trying to update (since it deleted it before failing).

So what’s the solution? Well you could download the latest plug-in version and manually extract / commit it to your repository; but that’s too long winded (and boring). The ideal solution lies in the use of the svn:externals property. It allows you to attach an external repository location to a folder in your own repository. Since all WordPress plug-ins are hosted in the WordPress repository you can update all your plug-in’s directly from there with a quick “SVN Update”! Perfect!

You can do this via SSH and the command line or you can do it via a SVN client with a GUI (I use TortoiseSVN). I’ll be showing you how to do it via the GUI.

First you need to remove the plug-in you want to update from your repository if it’s been added. This may seem a little strange as you are trying to update it; but we need to update from an external repository and if a version already exists it will fail:

Delete the plug-in you wish to update
Delete the plug-in you need updating from the repository first

Next you need to setup your svn:externals property on the “wp-content/plugins” directory via the properties menu:

tortoise properties menu
Edit the properties on the 'plugins' directory.

Now for the tedious bit. For all the plug-ins you want SVN to auto-update, you will need to find the WordPress repository URL for. So for the example, to update Akismet and All in One SEO pack you will enter the following:

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akismet http://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/akismet/trunk/
all-in-one-seo-pack http://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/all-in-one-seo-pack/trunk/
Using Tortoise SVN externals
Add the plug-in repositories to the externals properties, one per line.

Once you’ve added all the plug-ins you want to auto-update (remember to remove them first if they already exist in your repository!) commit your changes. Then watch the magic happen via an update:

Updating WordPress plugins directly from the repository
Plug-ins checked out from the WordPress repository.

Akismet and All in One SEO Pack have been checked out from the WordPress repository trunk. Every time you do an update SVN will check for new versions of the plug-ins. Great stuff! There is a slight warning with checking out from trunk; the developer could be working on a new release and unfinished code may have been committed, so the plug-in may be broken if updating from trunk! To get around this you may want to checkout from the plug-in tags (final versions) instead. To do that change the repository URLs to:

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akismet http://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/akismet/tags/2.4.0/
all-in-one-seo-pack http://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/all-in-one-seo-pack/tags/1.6.9/

Unfortunately this will involve changing your svn:externals property every time a new version of a plug-in comes out, but it’s less likely your plug-ins will break. Note: Remember to replace the tag version number with the latest version.

I hope this little tip helps you streamline your deployment!

P.S. On a side note, if anybody knows how to auto update from a tag automatically please leave a comment, I’d love to know if it’s possible.

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