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            <h1><a href='/'>Casey DeLorme</a></h1>
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            <h3><a href="https://github.com/cdelorme/modernizer">modernizer</a></h3>

<p>I only found one alternative, and they put a ton of effort into supporting binary delta updates, which I think are a waste of time and code.</p>

<p>As usual, I decided to write my own.  In roughly a weekend I was able to create a tool that downloads a version file, compares versions, downloads and replaces the binary in a cross-platform compatible way, and launches the new executable while retaining the default file descriptors.</p>

<p>Windows has two minor glitches that required a bit of extra cleanup work.  First it does not offer <code>Exec</code>, so the process id changes, but it somehow inherits the same streams (stdin/stdout/stderr all continue to work correctly).  Second in order to eliminate the previous binary a rename and cleanup process is required since windows locks the binary file during execution (<em>I assume due to mmap calls?</em>).</p>

<p>While it isn&rsquo;t a perfect solution for all use-cases, it works great and is damn small (less than 200 lines of code).</p>

<p>For complex situations where you need to cleanup the existing runtime, or want to carry over an open network connection (eg. keep a service active) then you probably want something more complex and tailor-made.</p>

<p><strong><em>written on 2017-04-13</em></strong></p>

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