Using Powershell To Retrieve Latest Package Url From Github Releases

Github can host package releases, I will show you how to use Powershell to retrieve the latest release download url.

Download latest Powershell release for Windows x64 zip version

The goal of this demo is to convert the static url:

• https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/latest

to the real download url (latest version on 2019/12/29):

• https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/download/v6.2.3/PowerShell-6.2.3-win-x64.zip

> $url = 'https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/latest'
> $request = [System.Net.WebRequest]::Create($url)
> $response = $request.GetResponse()
> $realTagUrl = $response.ResponseUri.OriginalString
> $version = $realTagUrl.split('/')[-1].Trim('v')
> $version
6.2.3
> $fileName = "PowerShell-$version-win-x64.zip"
> $realDownloadUrl = $realTagUrl.Replace('tag', 'download') + '/' + $fileName
> $realDownloadUrl
https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/download/v6.2.3/PowerShell-6.2.3-win-x64.zip
> Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $realDownloadUrl -OutFile $env:TEMP/$fileName

The same method can be applied to retrieve other urls on other sites.

The powershell pre-release doesn’t have a static url, so I cannot retrieve the latest v7.0.0-rc.1 download url.