CODEWITHSUNDEEP
macossparkle
Jerry Krinock
Jerry Krinock

Reputation: 5030

Basic Usage of generate_appcast tool of Sparkle Updater

Since macOS 11.3 broke my Perl script which I have been using to generate Sparkle appcasts for the last 12 years, I decided to instead start using the generate_appcast tool which has since been provided with Sparkle. Invoking generate_appcast with no arguments, I get some brief documentation which I interpret to mean that I should provide two arguments:

So I created a new directory and copied zip archives of the three most recent versions of my app into it. Those are the .zip archives, notarized by Apple, which I upload to my site for users to download.

Then I ran this command:

Air2:~ jk$ generate_appcast -f /path/to/My_Sparkle_priv.pem /path/to/directory/of/zips

The result:

Warning: Private key not found in the Keychain (-25300). Please run the generate_keys tool
Error generating appcast from directory /path/to/My_Sparkle_priv.pem 
 Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “My_Sparkle_priv.pem” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo={NSUserStringVariant=(
    Folder
), NSURL=file:///path/to/My_Sparkle_priv.pem/, NSFilePath=/path/to/My_Sparkle_priv.pem, NSUnderlyingError=0x13a637e10 {Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=20 "Not a directory"}}

Apparently it is not recognizing the key file I provided, and also oddly implies that it expects a directory instead of a regular file. In the brief documentation, there is an example marked [DEPRECATED] which omits the -f before the path to the key file, so I tried that but got the same result. I also tried putting the path to the zips first, but that result was even worse.

My key file is, I think, a pretty standard .pem text file that begins with the line -----BEGIN DSA PRIVATE KEY----- followed by 1133 ASCII characters, etc.

Where did I miss the boat?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1132

Answers (1)

Jerry Krinock
Jerry Krinock

Reputation: 5030

Astonishingly, this seems to be due to an obvious programming error in the Sparkle generate_appcast Swift source code. In attempting to remove elements indexed N and N+1 from an array of command-line arguments, the code removes element N, and then removes element N+1, which of course removes elements N and N+2 instead. After I fixed this programming error, the problem is solved.

After I do some more head-scratching and maybe consulting with others smarter than me, I shall submit a pull request or whatever to the Sparkle project next week.

Upvotes: 1

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