WordPress 2.7 upgrade in one line

posted Dec 10th 2008 7:46pm by Eliot Phillips
filed under: downloads hacks, misc hacks

wordpress

BadPoetry WordPress 2.7 has just been released and features a complete interface overhaul. Hack a Day runs on WordPress MU hosted by WordPress.com, so we got this update last week. We run standard WordPress.org on all of our personal blogs though. We recommend it because it’s free, has a massive userbase, and if you host it yourself, you can do whatever you want with it.

To make the upgrade process as simple as possible (and for the sheer rush of ‘rm -rf’), we use a one line command.

$ curl http://wordpress.org/latest.zip -o "wp.zip" && unzip wp.zip && rm -rf ./wordpress/wp-content/ && cp -r ./wordpress/* ~/www/

curl downloads the latest version from wordpress. unzip unpacks all of the files into a directory called ‘wordpress’. rm -rf removes everything in the ‘wp-content’ directory. Otherwise, you will overwrite your images, themes, and plugins. cp -r copies everything to your http document root, overwriting the previous install.

Naturally, you should back up your current install and database beforehand. We tend to use the one-liner with reckless abandon. If you’re wondering about the terseness, it was designed to fit inside the 140 character limit of Twitter.

[Thanks, Chris Finke]

Comments [38]

tagged: blog, cfinke, chris finke, cms, command line, command line interface, curl, one line, rm, rm -rf, twitter, wordpress, wordpress mu, wordpress.com, wordpress.org

Reader Comments

Upgrading with Subversion also works well too..

http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing/Updating_WordPress_with_Subversion

Posted at 9:34 pm on Dec 10th, 2008 by Daniel McOrmond

There’s an even simpler way of doing it by using the subversion repository, check out a stable tag and when it’s time to upgrade just switch to the new tag.

http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing/Updating_WordPress_with_Subversion

Posted at 11:09 pm on Dec 10th, 2008 by Hermann

You should put the oneliner in a crontab ;-).

Posted at 3:31 am on Dec 11th, 2008 by vilhelmk

You still have to run the upgrade.php script, so a crontab is not a good idea. Personally, I use subversion for keeping up to date. That truly is a one liner.

http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing/Updating_WordPress_with_Subversion

svn sw http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress/tags/2.7/ .

Posted at 4:38 am on Dec 11th, 2008 by derek

And if you are using CentOS, Redhat (or some fedora’s).

You will get prompted on every overwrite :-( … see the fix here: http://www.saiweb.co.uk/linux/cp-f-prompting

Posted at 5:37 am on Dec 11th, 2008 by buzz

That command doesn’t delete the files of the previous version, though, it just overwrites them (or so it looks to me; I’m very much a cl beginner). WP docs state you should delete and replace instead of overwrite; as experienced users, do you see that as a redundant process or an assessed risk balanced out by the simplicity of the alternative?

Posted at 6:33 am on Dec 11th, 2008 by Paul Raven

A few things:
1. zip is for windows. We use gzip because it is much more powerful.
2. gzip accepts stdin pipes.
3. curl defaults to stdout, so…

curl http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz|tar zx --exclude wp-content -C ~/www --strip-components 1

…would save you 31 chars. Heck, that 22% of a tweet you gain. Better yet, it does not require you to store the zip file (or extracted working copy) locally, or delete them when you are done. That’s important if you are running wordpress on a potato. http://www.bbspot.com/News/2008/12/linux-on-a-potato.html

Posted at 8:21 am on Dec 11th, 2008 by Richard Bronosky

I just did this last night, not with the one liner though. I have to say that the new dashboard is badass. Big improvement over previous versions.

Posted at 8:38 am on Dec 11th, 2008 by adam

>>vilhelmk

i think putting it in a crontab is a little overkill considering you will need to run the command once every couple weeks when wp updates their version. in order to be efficient one would have to automatically monitor releases. might as well use svn.

Posted at 9:20 am on Dec 11th, 2008 by schell

sweeet..

Looks like I’ve got some upgrading to do this weekend.. ;)

>vilhelmk – you can do it either way, it’s just a matter of changing the commands you use in the ‘one liner’ approach..

I would caution to upgrading *anything* right as the first release comes out.. It’s always best to wait a few days (weeks) to get the initial bugs worked out.. had a bad experience with Ubuntu because of this (I now use debian.. tried and true, it’s the rock)

Posted at 9:31 am on Dec 11th, 2008 by medix

So, when will we be getting the lowercase CSS statement removed?

Posted at 12:24 pm on Dec 11th, 2008 by draeath

I use wordpress automatic upgrade to upgrade with just a few clicks.

Posted at 1:08 pm on Dec 11th, 2008 by Matt

I should clarify that wordpress automatic upgrade is a plugin.

Posted at 1:08 pm on Dec 11th, 2008 by Matt

i just used the line and it upgraded my blog perfectly. please note that if you have your blog in a directory other than your web root, you’ll want to tag that onto the ~/www
richard, i actually tried your shorter one, and it didn’t work. perhaps because it references wp-content rather than wordpress/wp-content?

Posted at 4:27 pm on Dec 12th, 2008 by jim

I very liked this post. Can I copy it to my site?
Thanks in advance.

Sincerely, Timur.

Posted at 12:54 pm on Jan 1st, 2009 by Timekeeper

I very liked this post. Can I copy it to my site?
Thanks in advance.

Posted at 6:02 pm on Jan 2nd, 2009 by free games

Why does everyone ask to copy it to their site

Posted at 2:52 pm on Jan 4th, 2009 by Glass Mirror

I’ve never had an issue upgrading my WP. All I have ever done is read the little 3 sentence instructions on their site and it’s always worked fine. Maybe just lucky I guess!

Posted at 8:16 pm on Jan 14th, 2009 by Micah

Useful information , great post . Thanks for sharing !!

Posted at 1:11 pm on Jan 18th, 2009 by itsuport

thank god for these new wordpress updates.

Posted at 7:12 pm on Jan 19th, 2009 by Jay work at home

i heard lots of ppl prefer the older version of wordpress

Yours sincerely,
donnie
http://donnieproperties.blogspot.com

Posted at 6:28 pm on Jan 20th, 2009 by don

Can somebody please explain to me what wordpress is exactly?

Posted at 10:04 am on Jan 27th, 2009 by Tony

I’ll tell you what, the new pheromone colognes and pheromone perfumes are awesome. They can now make a broader range of quality human pheromones. I tried some of the old ones like pherlure and nexus, but this stuff actually got noticeable reactions.

Posted at 2:55 pm on Mar 1st, 2009 by pheromone cologne

Subversion upgrading will work very well as well.

Posted at 5:22 pm on Mar 6th, 2009 by gdirectory

Useful information , great post…= )

Posted at 12:09 pm on May 11th, 2009 by lissa

I tried out wordpress , i cant seem to get the hang of it.I hear tho that its very good. So maybe i should get to work on working on it !

Posted at 1:18 pm on May 14th, 2009 by Gammie Work From Home

WordPress works me but there’s still a lot to know especially with the new techniques coming out everyday…

Thanks for the heads up, Eliot! :)

And remember…Success is not by chance, it’s by CHOICE!

Cheers,
Genesis Pure Business Opportunity

Posted at 12:38 am on May 18th, 2009 by Genesis Pure Business Opportunity

WordPress is definitely the king of the castle, it’s worth sticking with if you can’t get your head round it!

Posted at 2:46 am on Jun 9th, 2009 by solicitors northamptonshire

Thanks. I’ll use it for my blog too. :)

Posted at 10:23 am on Jun 9th, 2009 by Veditos

WordPress 2.7 was awesome, but the one button upgrade is the best out of all there upgrades.

Posted at 8:31 am on Jul 4th, 2009 by Love poems & Love Quotes

thanks for this usefull info but i use wordpress automatic upgrades

Posted at 11:16 am on Aug 12th, 2009 by puma

Humm thanks for letting me know i will update it as soon as possible.

Posted at 11:20 am on Aug 19th, 2009 by retro trainers

I will implement those updates to my blog thanks for sharing information.

Posted at 4:04 pm on Aug 26th, 2009 by Wrought Iron Entry Doors

How long have you been blogging…your good at it.

Posted at 2:08 pm on Aug 30th, 2009 by Kate

thanks for the info i have upgraded

Posted at 11:01 am on Sep 9th, 2009 by shop counter

?berlasse es Ihnen zu entscheiden.

Posted at 10:36 am on Sep 19th, 2009 by Latanya Breneman

Come play snake game!

Posted at 6:58 pm on Sep 29th, 2009 by Snake game

nice,thank you

Posted at 6:15 am on Nov 3rd, 2009 by nchake

WordPress 2.7 upgrade in one line

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