Checking the October CMS version in PHP code

Tips and Tricks
#1

With the recent release of October CMS v3.0, this advice should help with managing plugins across multiple versions. To use different logic depending on the October CMS version. Here is a way for you to check the exact version.

A simple way to check if October CMS is running v2 or above:

if (class_exists('System'))  {
    // Running October CMS 2.0 or above
}
else {
    // Running October CMS 1.0 or 1.1
}

For more precise checking, you can include an extra step with version_compare. This next example checks if it is running v2.2 or above:

if (
    class_exists('System') &&
    version_compare(\System::VERSION, '2.2', '>=')
) {
    // Running October CMS 2.2 or above
}
else {
    // Running a legacy version
}

Another example:

if (!class_exists('System')) {
    // Running October CMS 1.0 or 1.1
}
// 2.0 only
elseif (version_compare(\System::VERSION, '2.0', '=')) {
    // Running October CMS 2.0 only (not including 2.1, 2.2, etc.)
}

This is the strategy we use internally with the RainLab plugins. I hope you find this useful as well.

5 Likes
#3

On a system running v3.3, here is the expected output:

> version_compare(\System::VERSION, '3.4')
= -1

> version_compare(\System::VERSION, '3.3')
= 0

> version_compare(\System::VERSION, '3.2')
= 1

Semantically, I believe it works best using the third operator, like this:

if (version_compare(\System::VERSION, '3.4', '>=')) {
    // Running October CMS 3.4 or later
}
else {
    // Or not...
}
2 Likes