Title: Using api.wordpress.org for update check
Last modified: August 20, 2016

---

# Using api.wordpress.org for update check

 *  Resolved [henningsprang](https://wordpress.org/support/users/henningsprang/)
 * (@henningsprang)
 * [14 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/using-apiwordpressorg-for-update-check/)
 * Hi,
 * In an environment where we have built RPM packages for the themes and plugins
   we need, now we want to automate the update process so we don’t need to go into
   the webinterface or manually download an unzip new versions to update our plugins.
 * Therefore we need – independently of wordpress core code – to get update information.
   I dug as deep into the code now to see that the script wp-includes/update.php
   does a call to
 * [http://api.wordpress.org/plugins/update-check/1.0/](http://api.wordpress.org/plugins/update-check/1.0/)
 * to get this information. But it’s a bit cryptical to me to see the exact format
   of such a call – expecting I could call some URL with parameters like plugin 
   name and version and get information about a new version being available or not,
   in the best case with the url to the new version.
 * Is there any documentation about the format of data the api site accepts as input
   and will return?
 * Thanks,
    Henning

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

 *  [mmenciassi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mmenciassi/)
 * (@mmenciassi)
 * [13 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/using-apiwordpressorg-for-update-check/#post-2574270)
 * i’m also interest in this question.
    nobody have news?
 *  Thread Starter [henningsprang](https://wordpress.org/support/users/henningsprang/)
 * (@henningsprang)
 * [13 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/using-apiwordpressorg-for-update-check/#post-2574271)
 * Sorry for not posting the solution.
 * I found some documentation abpout using the wordpress api to get information 
   about plugins, it is available in various formats, like:
 * [http://api.wordpress.org/plugins/info/1.0/authenticator.json](http://api.wordpress.org/plugins/info/1.0/authenticator.json)
   
   [http://api.wordpress.org/plugins/info/1.0/authenticator.php](http://api.wordpress.org/plugins/info/1.0/authenticator.php)
   [http://api.wordpress.org/plugins/info/1.0/authenticator.xml](http://api.wordpress.org/plugins/info/1.0/authenticator.xml)
 * There you find the latest version available for plugins hosted in the official
   repositories (and we’re trying to use only these).
 * Another crucial part is to find the version of a plugin you have in place, which
   is harder because there is no standard place in a plugin directory where it must
   be written.
 * WordPress istself contains code with a complex logic to find the version of a
   plugin, which I turned out to be using.
    If you need further information, please
   ask, I can dig it out for you, and/or try to clean my code for creating and updating
   the self-built RPM packages from company specific parts and publish it.
 *  Thread Starter [henningsprang](https://wordpress.org/support/users/henningsprang/)
 * (@henningsprang)
 * [13 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/using-apiwordpressorg-for-update-check/#post-2574272)
 * (marking this as solved as i found out the answer myself and documented it here–
   as said, anybody who needs more details – you’re welcome to ask)
 *  Thread Starter [henningsprang](https://wordpress.org/support/users/henningsprang/)
 * (@henningsprang)
 * [13 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/using-apiwordpressorg-for-update-check/#post-2574273)
 * and here some links to the docs(also adding them to the wiki right now):
 * * [http://dd32.id.au/projects/wordpressorg-plugin-information-api-docs/](http://dd32.id.au/projects/wordpressorg-plugin-information-api-docs/)
   *
   [http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress.org_API](http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress.org_API)*
   [http://ckon.wordpress.com/2010/07/20/undocumented-wordpress-org-plugin-api/](http://ckon.wordpress.com/2010/07/20/undocumented-wordpress-org-plugin-api/)
 *  [mmenciassi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mmenciassi/)
 * (@mmenciassi)
 * [13 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/using-apiwordpressorg-for-update-check/#post-2574274)
 * many thanks for your answers
 * i’m writing a ‘must-use’ plugin, so, i read automatic update for this kind of
   plugins doesn’t work… but i don’t understand if is possible obtain update notification
   or not.
    for this reason i’m looking for the api to check update, maybe could
   i notify at users that a new version is available.
 * i will read the documentations that you sudgest.
    Ciao

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

The topic ‘Using api.wordpress.org for update check’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [api](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/api/)

 * 5 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [mmenciassi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mmenciassi/)
 * Last activity: [13 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/using-apiwordpressorg-for-update-check/#post-2574274)
 * Status: resolved

## Topics

### Topics with no replies

### Non-support topics

### Resolved topics

### Unresolved topics

### All topics