The application upgrade file should be called Application.appup where Application is the name of the application. The file should be located in the ebin directory for the application.

The .appup file contains one single Erlang term, which defines the instructions used to upgrade or downgrade the application. The file has the following syntax:

In order to avoid duplication of upgrade instructions it is allowed to use regular expressions to specify the UpFromVsn and DownToVsn. To be considered a regular expression, the version identifier must be specified as a binary, e.g.

will match all versions 2.1.x, where x is any number.

Release upgrade instructions are interpreted by the release handler when an upgrade or downgrade is made. For more information about release handling, refer to OTP Design Principles.

A process is said to use a module Mod, if Mod is listed in the Modules part of the child specification used to start the process, see supervisor(3). In the case of gen_event, an event manager process is said to use Mod if Mod is an installed event handler.

High-level instructions

{update, Mod}
{update, Mod, supervisor}
{update, Mod, Change}
{update, Mod, DepMods}
{update, Mod, Change, DepMods}
{update, Mod, Change, PrePurge, PostPurge, DepMods}
{update, Mod, Timeout, Change, PrePurge, PostPurge, DepMods}
{update, Mod, ModType, Timeout, Change, PrePurge, PostPurge, DepMods}
  Mod = atom()
  ModType = static | dynamic
  Timeout = int()>0 | default | infinity
  Change = soft | {advanced,Extra}
    Extra = term()
  PrePurge = PostPurge = soft_purge | brutal_purge
  DepMods = [Mod]
    

Synchronized code replacement of processes using the module Mod. All those processes are suspended using sys:suspend, the new version of the module is loaded and then the processes are resumed using sys:resume.

Change defaults to soft and defines the type of code change. If it is set to {advanced,Extra}, processes implemented using gen_server, gen_fsm or gen_event will transform their internal state by calling the callback function code_change. Special processes will call the callback function system_code_change/4. In both cases, the term Extra is passed as an argument to the callback function.

PrePurge defaults to brutal_purge and controls what action to take with processes that are executing old code before loading the new version of the module. If the value is brutal_purge, the processes are killed. If the value is soft_purge, release_handler:install_release/1 returns {error,{old_processes,Mod}}.

PostPurge defaults to brutal_purge and controls what action to take with processes that are executing old code when the new version of the module has been loaded. If the value is brutal_purge, the code is purged when the release is made permanent and the processes are killed. If the value is soft_purge, the release handler will purge the old code when no remaining processes execute the code.

DepMods defaults to [] and defines which other modules Mod is dependent on. In relup, instructions for suspending processes using Mod will come before instructions for suspending processes using modules in DepMods when upgrading, and vice versa when downgrading. In case of circular dependencies, the order of the instructions in the appup script is kept.

Timeout defines the timeout when suspending processes. If no value or default is given, the default value for sys:suspend is used.

ModType defaults to dynamic and specifies if the code is "dynamic", that is if a process using the module does spontaneously switch to new code, or if it is "static". When doing an advanced update and upgrading, the new version of a dynamic module is loaded before the process is asked to change code. When downgrading, the process is asked to change code before loading the new version. For static modules, the new version is loaded before the process is asked to change code, both in the case of upgrading and downgrading. Callback modules are dynamic.

update with argument supervisor is used when changing the start specification of a supervisor.

{load_module, Mod}
{load_module, Mod, DepMods}
{load_module, Mod, PrePurge, PostPurge, DepMods}
  Mod = atom()
  PrePurge = PostPurge = soft_purge | brutal_purge
  DepMods = [Mod]
    

Simple code replacement of the module Mod.

See update above for a description of PrePurge and PostPurge.

DepMods defaults to [] and defines which other modules Mod is dependent on. In relup, instructions for loading these modules will come before the instruction for loading Mod when upgrading, and vice versa when downgrading.

{add_module, Mod}
  Mod = atom()
    

Loads a new module Mod.

{delete_module, Mod}
  Mod = atom()
    

Deletes a module Mod using the low-level instructions remove and purge.

{add_application, Application}
{add_application, Application, Type}
  Application = atom()
  Type = permanent | transient | temporary | load | none
    

Adding an application means that the modules defined by the modules key in the .app file are loaded using add_module.

Type defaults to permanent and specifies the start type of the application. If Type = permanent | transient | temporary, the application will be loaded and started in the corresponding way, see application(3). If Type = load, the application will only be loaded. If Type = none, the application will be neither loaded nor started, although the code for its modules will be loaded.

{remove_application, Application}
  Application = atom()
    

Removing an application means that the application is stopped, the modules are unloaded using delete_module and then the application specification is unloaded from the application controller.

{restart_application, Application}
  Application = atom()
    

Restarting an application means that the application is stopped and then started again similar to using the instructions remove_application and add_application in sequence.

Low-level instructions

{load_object_code, {App, Vsn, [Mod]}}
  App = Mod = atom()
  Vsn = string()
    

Reads each Mod from the directory App-Vsn/ebin as a binary. It does not load the modules. The instruction should be placed first in the script in order to read all new code from file to make the suspend-load-resume cycle less time consuming. After this instruction has been executed, the code server with the new version of App.

point_of_no_return
    

If a crash occurs after this instruction, the system cannot recover and is restarted from the old version of the release. The instruction must only occur once in a script. It should be placed after all load_object_code instructions.

{load, {Mod, PrePurge, PostPurge}}
  Mod = atom()
  PrePurge = PostPurge = soft_purge | brutal_purge
    

Before this instruction occurs, Mod must have been loaded using load_object_code. This instruction loads the module. PrePurge is ignored. See the high-level instruction update for a description of PostPurge.

{remove, {Mod, PrePurge, PostPurge}}
  Mod = atom()
  PrePurge = PostPurge = soft_purge | brutal_purge
    

Makes the current version of Mod old. PrePurge is ignored. See the high-level instruction update for a description of PostPurge.

{purge, [Mod]}
  Mod = atom()
    

Purges each module Mod, that is removes the old code. Note that any process executing purged code is killed.

{suspend, [Mod | {Mod, Timeout}]}
  Mod = atom()
  Timeout = int()>0 | default | infinity
    

Tries to suspend all processes using a module Mod. If a process does not respond, it is ignored. This may cause the process to die, either because it crashes when it spontaneously switches to new code, or as a result of a purge operation. If no Timeout is specified or default is given, the default value for sys:suspend is used.

{resume, [Mod]}
  Mod = atom()
    

Resumes all suspended processes using a module Mod.

{code_change, [{Mod, Extra}]}
{code_change, Mode, [{Mod, Extra}]}
  Mod = atom()
  Mode = up | down
  Extra = term()
    

Mode defaults to up and specifies if it is an upgrade or downgrade.

This instruction sends a code_change system message to all processes using a module Mod by calling the function sys:change_code, passing the term Extra as argument.

{stop, [Mod]}
  Mod = atom()
    

Stops all processes using a module Mod by calling supervisor:terminate_child/2. The instruction is useful when the simplest way to change code is to stop and restart the processes which run the code.

{start, [Mod]}
  Mod = atom()
    

Starts all stopped processes using a module Mod by calling supervisor:restart_child/2.

{sync_nodes, Id, [Node]}
{sync_nodes, Id, {M, F, A}}
  Id = term()
  Node = node()
  M = F = atom()
  A = [term()]
    

apply(M, F, A) must return a list of nodes.

The instruction synchronizes the release installation with other nodes. Each Node must evaluate this command, with the same Id. The local node waits for all other nodes to evaluate the instruction before execution continues. In case a node goes down, it is considered to be an unrecoverable error, and the local node is restarted from the old release. There is no timeout for this instruction, which means that it may hang forever.

{apply, {M, F, A}}
  M = F = atom()
  A = [term()]
    

Evaluates apply(M, F, A). If the instruction appears before the point_of_no_return instruction, a failure is caught. release_handler:install_release/1 then returns {error,{'EXIT',Reason}}, unless {error,Error} is thrown or returned. Then it returns {error,Error}.

If the instruction appears after the point_of_no_return instruction, and the function call fails, the system is restarted.

restart_new_emulator
    

This instruction is used when erts, kernel, stdlib or sasl is upgraded. It shuts down the current emulator and starts a new one. All processes are terminated gracefully, and the new version of erts, kernel, stdlib and sasl are used when the emulator restarts. Only one restart_new_emulator instruction is allowed in the relup, and it shall be placed first. systools:make_relup3,4 will ensure this when the relup is generated. The rest of the relup script is executed after the restart as a part of the boot script.

An info report will be written when the upgrade is completed. To programatically find out if the upgrade is complete, call release_handler:which_releases and check if the expected release has status current.

The new release must still be made permanent after the upgrade is completed. Otherwise, the old emulator is started in case of an emulator restart.

restart_emulator
    

This instruction is similar to restart_new_emulator, except it shall be placed at the end of the relup script. It is not related to an upgrade of the emulator or the core applications, but can be used by any application when a complete reboot of the system is reqiured. When generating the relup, systools:make_relup/3,4 ensures that there is only one restart_emulator instruction and that it is the last instruction of the relup.

relup(4), release_handler(3), supervisor(3), systools(3)