Using the Minimum DotNetNuke® Version Feature
Jan
2
Written by:
1/2/2008
I have been using the minimum DotNetNuke® version feature in my modules for some time now. It is a great feature in your DNN manifest file that prevents your modules from being installed on unsupported versions. However, when I upgraded from v4.05.03, it didn't work anymore.
Your manifest file allows you to specify the minimum supported DNN version like so (adapted from this blog post):
<compatibleversions>^[0]{1}[4-9]{1}.[0]{1}[5-9]{1}.[0]{1}[3-9]{1}$</compatibleversions>
The Regular Expression in the "compatibleversions" tag allows you to specify the version your module will work on. It is not a perfect way to do it, but it works well. And that worked flawlessly until today, when I tried to install a module with that same expression. This time, I was told that my DNN version needed to be upgraded, and that the module installation was aborted.
This was confusing to me since the current version I was installing on was 4.06.02. That is certainly higher than 4.05.03. I ran the regular expression through a validator, and at first it didn't match. I at first realized it was for the most obvious reason. I needed to escape the periods. Nope! Didn't work.
After some testing, I soon realized that the newest version(s) of DNN might not necessarily send back the preceding zero (0) in the major version number. So, I changed my minimum version to the following example:
<compatibleversions>^[0]?[4-9]{1}\.[0]{1}[5-9]{1}\.[0]{1}[3-9]{1}$</compatibleversions>
The preceding example will allow the module to be installed on any DNN instance as long as it is version 4.05.03 or higher.