One Liner to Download the Latest Release from Github Repo

One Liner to Download the Latest Release from Github Repo.md

• Use curl to get the JSON response for the latest release
• Use grep to find the line containing file URL
• Use cut and tr to extract the URL
• Use wget to download it

curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/jgm/pandoc/releases/latest \
| grep "browser_download_url.*deb" \
| cut -d : -f 2,3 \
| tr -d \" \
| wget -qi -

does anyone realize that piping multiple commands (from 4 up to 10) is not elegant?
And the more you insist, the more it looks bad.

1 pipe and 2 commands (curl, awk) is enough, is more effective, and it does not require installing additional tools:

URL="https://api.github.com/repos/jgraph/drawio-desktop/releases/latest"

curl -s $URL | awk -F\" '/browser_download_url.*.deb/{system("curl -OL " $(NF-1))}'

In this case it fetches two artifacts: one for ARM one for AMD64, but if you want to fetch only one artifact, you don't need another 3 pipes, and you do as follows:

URL="https://api.github.com/repos/jgraph/drawio-desktop/releases/latest"

curl -s $URL | awk -F\" '/browser_download_url.*.deb/&&/amd64/{system("curl -OL " $(NF-1))}'

Lol...
If you have the filname just do:

https://github.com/<USER>/<REPO>/releases/latest/download/<FILE_NAME>

example:

wget https://github.com/cloudflare/cloudflared/releases/latest/download/cloudflared-linux-amd64

Sometimes newer versions than the latest ones are released as pre-release in repos.

An example, (Powershell) command to always download the newer version even if it is pre-release:

powershell -c "(Invoke-RestMethod -uri https://api.github.com/repos/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu/releases)[0].assets.browser_download_url | Where-Object {$_ -like '*OpenShellSetup*'}"

Update Manager Class For C# APP using Github

Release the MSI after every release and update new version number to the readme file

Refer to the Gist:- Update Manager Class

Refer to the Repo:- Github Repo

private static async Task<string> GetLatestVersionFromGithub()
{
	string fileUrl = "url_containing_latest_version_number";

	using (HttpClient client = new HttpClient())
	{
		string cacheBuster = DateTime.UtcNow.Ticks.ToString();
		string requestUrl = $"{fileUrl}?cb={cacheBuster}";
		return await client.GetStringAsync(requestUrl);
	}
}

private static void UpdateApp(string filePath)
{
	string batchFilePath = Path.Combine(Path.GetTempPath(), "update.bat");

	string batchScript = $@"
                         @echo off
                         echo Uninstalling program...
                         msiexec /x {{product_code_of_your_app}} /qb

                         echo Starting setup file...
                         start """" ""{filePath}""                            
                         ";

	File.WriteAllText(batchFilePath, batchScript);
	Process.Start(new ProcessStartInfo(batchFilePath) { UseShellExecute = true });
	Environment.Exit(0);
}

private static async Task DownloadLatestVersion()
{
	var url = "https://github.com/{user_name}/{repo_name}/releases/latest/download/{name_of_msi}.msi";
	var filePath = Path.Combine(Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop), "PubEntrySetup.msi");

	using (HttpClient client = new HttpClient())
	using (HttpResponseMessage response = await client.GetAsync(url, HttpCompletionOption.ResponseHeadersRead))
	using (Stream streamToReadFrom = await response.Content.ReadAsStreamAsync())
	using (Stream streamToWriteTo = File.Open(filePath, FileMode.Create))
		await streamToReadFrom.CopyToAsync(streamToWriteTo);


	UpdateApp(filePath);
}

public static async Task CheckForUpdates()
{
	string fileContent = await GetLatestVersionFromGithub();

	if (fileContent.Contains("Latest Version = "))
	{
		string latestVersion = fileContent.Substring(fileContent.IndexOf("Latest Version = ") + 17, 7);
		string currentVersion = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().Version.ToString();
		if (latestVersion != currentVersion)
			if (MessageBox.Show("New Version Available. Do you want to update?", "Update Available", MessageBoxButtons.YesNo) == DialogResult.Yes)
				await DownloadLatestVersion();
	}
}

From batch scripts on Windows, you can call PowerShell without directly using its shell.:

First download grep.exe from this fairly popular but unmantained repo -because findstr sucks-

powershell iwr https://github.com/bmatzelle/gow/raw/refs/heads/master/bin/grep.exe -OutFile grep.exe

Then you can download your files like this.

set url=https://api.github.com/repos/user/repo/releases/latest
powershell irm %url% | grep -o 'https.*download.*zip' | powershell iwr -OutFile file.zip

Just replace user/repo and zip.

for filtring and download something like beta release

curl -sL https://api.github.com/repos/telegramdesktop/tdesktop/releases
| jq -r '.[] | select(.prerelease==true) | .assets[] | select(.browser_download_url | contains("tar.xz")) | .browser_download_url'
| wget -i-