Compare plugin versions when deciding whether to deploy

[westonruter]

Summary

This is something I noticed while working on #2619. I wasn't comfortable using the regular workflow for deployments of all plugins when a tag was created because the "Check if deployment is needed" step only halts when the version on WordPress.org is string-equal to the version being built:

if [ "$PLUGIN_VERSION_WPORG" = "$PLUGIN_VERSION" ]; then

So if the version on WordPress.org is newer than the one in the branch, the versions are unequal, the check passes, and the deployment proceeds — overwriting a newer release with an older one. Being a string comparison, it is also blind to ordering generally: 1.10.0 and 1.9.0 are simply "not equal".

Relevant technical choices

Swapped the equality test for version_compare(), halting whenever the WordPress.org version is >= the version being deployed:

if php -r 'exit( version_compare( $argv[1], $argv[2], ">=" ) ? 0 : 1 );' "$PLUGIN_VERSION_WPORG" "$PLUGIN_VERSION"; then

Verified against the cases that matter:

WordPress.org	Being deployed	Result
1.2.0	1.2.0	halt
1.3.0	1.2.0	halt (previously deployed)
1.10.0	1.9.0	halt (previously deployed)
1.2.0	1.3.0	deploy
1.2.0-beta1	1.2.0	deploy

The ::notice:: now names both versions, so the job log says why it stopped rather than just asserting the plugin is up to date.

Also added a setup-php step, pinned to the same SHA already used by php-lint.yml, plugin-check.yml, and copilot-setup-steps.yml. PHP is preinstalled on the ubuntu-latest image, so php -r would work without it — but relying on that fails open: a missing php binary exits non-zero, the if reads as "versions differ", and the deployment proceeds. Setting PHP up explicitly turns that into a failed job instead. I used php-version: latest (as in php-lint.yml) since version_compare() behavior is stable across versions; happy to pin it to '8.3' to match plugin-check.yml if preferred.

Testing instructions

The changed step can be exercised standalone:

for pair in "1.2.0 1.2.0" "1.3.0 1.2.0" "1.2.0 1.3.0" "1.10.0 1.9.0" "1.2.0-beta1 1.2.0"; do
  set -- $pair
  if php -r 'exit( version_compare( $argv[1], $argv[2], ">=" ) ? 0 : 1 );' "$1" "$2"; then
    echo "wporg=$1 build=$2 -> HALT"
  else
    echo "wporg=$1 build=$2 -> DEPLOY"
  fi
done

Note that the workflow itself only runs on release, so this path is not exercised by CI on this PR.

Use of AI Tools

Claude Code wrote the change and this description, at my direction, after I spotted the faulty comparison and specified the version_compare() fix and the setup-php addition. I reviewed both the diff and the verification output.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

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Co-authored-by: westonruter <westonruter@git.wordpress.org>

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