vtsaran
5th December 2007 06:54 UTC

User variables in file paths during file extraction
Hello all,
OK, I searched everywhere but could not find any answers to my question below (perhaps wrong keywords?).
I am trying to have my installer modify file paths during the file extraction based on the user input. Very likely I am doing something wrong because NSIS badly complains at me.
Here is an example:

Say, I would like different files to be extracted depending on the language that the user chooses from a dropdown list. I store their choice in a user variable $MyLang, like so

var $MyLang

In the "install" section, I would like to do this:
IfFileExists "..\SomePath\$MyLang\SomeFile" 0 +3
file "..\SomePath\$MyLang\SomeFile"
goto SomewhereElse
MessageBox MB_OK "No supporting files for your particular language found ,defaulting to English."
file "..\SomePath\SomeFileInEnglish"

It seems that both IFFileExists and File commands ignore my $MyLang variable. In the case of File instruction NSIS complains that "..\SomePath\$MyLang\SomeFile" cannot be found.

Any ideas on how I can solve this problem?
I am suspecting that NSIS doesn't like my variables because they are filled in at runtime, but there has to be some way around this.

Thanks for any help.
Regards,
Vic

Fightin_Foo
5th December 2007 15:53 UTC

You may be right about NSIS not liking the variables because they are filled at runtime. Have you considered writing a macro or function to extract the files for each language you are supporting? You can still take the input from the user and then put the MyLang variable into a switch or a series of if else if, and then NSIS only extract the files according to the selected language. It may make your installer bigger than you wanted, and there is probably a better solution out there, but it should work.

vtsaran
5th December 2007 18:45 UTC

I guess that may work, but seems a bit inefficient
Thanks for your suggestion. I guess, this would my last choice as I wanted all the matching happen automatically. In my installer tree I have folders that are named according to the language abbreviations and it would be easier if the extraction was dependant on one variable rather than on the set of if-else statements. This means that I would not have to modify the installer every time a new language (think folder) is added.
Any more cool ideas out there? :)
Thanks.

Coolblu77
6th December 2007 10:42 UTC

I'm not sure why the IfFileExisits would ignore your variable.

But I was under the impression that File was used to add files in at compile time and then extract them during installation.
So it makes sense that a variable cannot be used here.

How about, adding the extra files you want to distribute along with the installation.exe, not compiled into the exe but in a seperate folder, then use something like:
CopyFiles "$EXEDIR\SomePath\$MyLang\" "$INSTDIR"
(This will copy all the files in the $MyLang directory to the installation directory.)
CopyFiles "$EXEDIR\SomePath\$MyLang\SomeFile" "$INSTDIR"
(or this will only copy one file)

vtsaran
7th December 2007 01:49 UTC

OK thanks, I will give this a thought and a shot! :)