Question

I am developing a mobile app, for both Android and BlackBerry.

I’ve uploaded my latest application for OTA installation by including version code and version name into a plain text file on the server.

Within my app, how do I convert code version and version name from the plain-text format on my server to a string. I want to do this so I can have the app compare it’s current version against what is available on the server, so that if a newer version on the server, the user will be offered an update to download.

Answer 1

This answer is for the android part only.

To get the app version number and name from your application, you can do the following (as suggested by @ColorWP.com

Getting the app version and name:

String version_number = getPackageManager().getPackageInfo(getPackageName(), 0).versionName;
String version_name = getPackageManager().getPackageInfo(getPackageName(), 0).versionNumber;

To read your file from the net:

URL url = new URL("http://www.your.site/your.txt");
URLConnection connect = url.openConnection();

BufferedReader txtreader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(connect.getInputStream()));
String line = txtreader.readLine();
while (line != null) {
    /* Code to Read your variables in this loop 
      (let us assume these would be:
      server_app_version
      server_app_name)
    */
 }

Make sure you add Internet permission, as suggested by @ColorWP.com

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"></uses-permission>

Compare the version:

if (server_app_version.compareTo(version_number) != 0 || server_app_name.compareTo(version_name) != 0){
    // Notify user to download the new version
}