Reinstall happening even when downloaded artifact is the same about brew

[trss]

Created this issue based on the suggestion at Homebrew/homebrew-cask#170127 (comment):

You could file that with the brew tool to see if it's consider a bug.

[bevanjkay]

@trss Are you sure this isn't because there is actually a newer version available after some time? Upstream sometimes updates the app multiple times within an hour.

[trss]

It wouldn't say it's already downloaded in that case is what I'm thinking.

[bevanjkay]

I can't say for sure how long the cache lasts for the brew outdated and brew upgrade commands (I would need to do some further digging).
But the binary is being downloaded and cached when you run brew outdated --greedy, and then brew upgrade chromium installs the cached file if it is indeed different to what is currently installed.

[trss]

Oh, I was completely unaware that brew outdated --greedy would download and cache the binary! Let me verify this as well as whether the cached file indeed changed and get back with my observations over the next few hours.

[bevanjkay]

If you run brew outdated --greedy --debug you will be able to see exactly what actions it is taking.

[trss]

Thanks, that's right!

I do see the following:

/usr/bin/env /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/shims/shared/curl --disable --cookie /dev/null --globoff --show-error --user-agent Homebrew/4.3.1\ \(Macintosh\;\ Intel\ Mac\ OS\ X\ 13.6.7\)\ curl/8.4.0 --header Accept-Language:\ en --retry 3 --fail --location --silent --head https://download-chromium.appspot.com/dl/Mac\?type=snapshots
/usr/bin/env /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/shims/shared/curl --disable --cookie /dev/null --globoff --show-error --user-agent Homebrew/4.3.1\ \(Macintosh\;\ Intel\ Mac\ OS\ X\ 13.6.7\)\ curl/8.4.0 --header Accept-Language:\ en --retry 3 --fail --location --silent --head --request GET https://download-chromium.appspot.com/dl/Mac\?type=snapshots

However, two suggestive observations:

1. The contents of chrome://version didn't change.
2. The location mentioned in Already downloaded: /Users/trss/Library/Caches/Homebrew/downloads/959aaf9ee2437d2161a6e3dd2443d23583f7a4569a3d5cda19ac82d9e02bc442--chrome-mac.zip hasn't changed across many reinstalls.

Looking forward to know from you whether the second one can be considered conclusive assuming you know how the caching works, specifically the generation of the cache file name.

[trss]

Obvious next step was to make a copy of the binary and compare with the newly downloaded one and they differ! Also, the created/modified timestamp of the file jumps each time it downloads (during brew outdated!). So now I have a more or less definitive answer to your question.

@trss Are you sure this isn't because there is actually a newer version available after some time? Upstream sometimes updates the app multiple times within an hour.

This in fact is because of a newer version being available! :) Thank you.