version-check: switch lastversion endpoint from SourceForge to GitHub Releases API - #522

Summary

The version-check probe in amule.cpp:636 has been hitting http://amule.sourceforge.net/lastversion since forever — a plain-text MAJOR.MINOR.UPDATE file that hasn't been maintained since the project moved to GitHub years ago. Even if SF still serves the file, the version it reports has been stuck for the multi-year gap since 2.3.3 (Feb 2021).

This PR repoints the request at the GitHub Releases API:

https://api.github.com/repos/amule-project/amule/releases/latest

which returns JSON describing the most recent non-prerelease, non-draft Release.

Why /releases/latest

Pairs naturally with the release.yml + draft-Release flow that landed in #520. Once a stable tag is published on GitHub, every aMule installation with version-check enabled picks up the new version on next startup automatically — no maintainer step beyond un-drafting the Release.

The endpoint excludes pre-releases by design:

• Users on stable 2.3.3 won't be told to upgrade when we tag 3.0.0-beta or 3.0.0-rc1 (those tags would carry the GitHub prerelease: true flag).
• They will be prompted once 3.0.0 stable is published as a non-prerelease Release.

The endpoint also excludes drafts, so the version check doesn't flip the moment release.yml creates the draft Release at tag-push time — un-drafting is the canonical "this release is now publicly available" signal.

Parser changes in CheckNewVersion()

The downloaded file was previously a one-line text response and is now JSON. Changes:

• Concatenate all lines of the downloaded file before regex-matching (the JSON body is pretty-printed across many lines).
• Extract tag_name via wxRegEx rather than dragging in a full JSON parser dep — one well-known field is straightforward to extract robustly.
• Strip optional v prefix (aMule's tags are bare semver, but be tolerant of future maintainer choices).
• Strip pre-release / build-metadata suffixes (-beta, -rc1, +build42) before the integer comparison. The /releases/latest endpoint already filters pre-releases, but keep the suffix-strip as defensive parsing.
• Treat tags with fewer than three components (e.g. 3.1 instead of 3.1.0) as missing-field-= 0 rather than erroring out.
• Clean up the temp file in early-error paths too (the original only removed it on the success path).

Transport

HTTPS works without transport changes — wxWebRequest support landed in #462, which is what CHTTPDownloadThread now sits on top of. Just changing the URL is enough; the existing If-Modified-Since / etag conditional-fetch behaviour carries over (GitHub's API supports both).

Pref gating

The existing s_NewVersionCheck pref still controls whether the request fires at all, so users who never opted in are unaffected.

Test plan

• Builds clean (amuled target on macOS local, against the new code).

• Parser exercised against the actual wxRegEx implementation via a standalone C++ test mirroring CheckNewVersion()'s logic. Verified inputs:

  Happy path:

  1. Real cli/cli /releases/latest payload → tag_name: "v2.92.0" → stripped to 2.92.0 ✓
  2. Real amule-project/amule /releases/latest payload → tag_name: "2.3.3" (existing published Release) → parsed as 2.3.3 ✓
  3. Bare "3.0.0" (aMule's tag style): parses to 3.0.0 ✓
  4. v-prefix with extra whitespace: "tag_name" : "v3.0.0" → 3.0.0 ✓
  5. Pre-release tags "3.0.0-beta", "3.0.0-rc1", "v3.0.0-beta", "2.4.0-rc.2", "3.0.0-beta.5", "v2.4.0-alpha" all strip to MAJOR.MINOR.UPDATE ✓
  6. Build metadata: "2.4.0+build42" → 2.4.0 ✓
  7. Two-component tag: "3.1" → parsed as 3.1.0 (missing UPDATE treated as 0) ✓

  Failure paths (all log _("Corrupted version check file") and return cleanly without crashing):

  • Malformed JSON: regex still extracts the well-known tag_name field if present (defensible — we're not doing strict JSON validation, just locating one field). ✓
  • 404 response shape (no tag_name field): regex misses → "Corrupted" → return. ✓
  • Empty tag_name: regex [^"]+ requires non-empty → no match → "Corrupted". ✓
  • Non-numeric token ("hello", "3.foo.bar"): tokenizer fails → "Corrupted" + cleanup. ✓
  • Degenerate inputs that strip to empty ("v", "-foo", "v-rc1", "+build42"): caught by an explicit versionLine.IsEmpty() guard added between the strip step and the tokenizer. Without that guard, these would silently report "up to date" against unparseable input — fixed in this commit. ✓

• End-to-end is already viable today: amule-project has a published 2.3.3 Release on the GitHub side, so users running this code will see "Your copy of aMule is up to date" if they're on 2.3.3, or the "outdated" prompt if they're older. Once 3.0.0 stable is published as a non-prerelease, every 2.3.3 user gets the upgrade prompt automatically. Pre-release tags (3.0.0-beta, 3.0.0-rc1) are filtered out by /releases/latest as designed.

Sized

One file (src/amule.cpp), +59 / −10 lines, single commit.