[ambal]

Originally Posted by intel352

Alex, I didn't get anything "mixed up", I work with upgrade packs and new installs all the time, it's easy to tell the difference.

Please see the attached screenshot, it's taken of WinRar viewing the contents of Upgrade_from_4.1.9_to_4.1.10_rc1.tgz

Note that some of the X-Cart folder structure is reflected, along with an "upgrade" folder that is where the DIFF files would reside.

Oops, my bad. I didn't look into your upgrade pack more carefully. I didn't expect the upgrade packs to contain PHP files.

Originally Posted by intel352

So again, is there a specific reason why certain files are being overwritten? Are these files that are too important to be patched?

I consulted with X-Cart development team. The files which are supposed to be overwritten rather than patched are so named "system" scripts (e.g. prepare.php) which define how the upgrade process goes in X-Cart. Patching them can lead to errors during upgrade and they are supposed to be overwritten.

Also, it is hardly to expect that someone customized them to get some new useful features in their X-Carts. But in case someone did so (i.e. modified those system files somehow) they can create DIFF patches using their backed up and new versions, then apply the DIFFs manually and continue with the upgrade (I guess those who customize X-Cart "system" files should be really good in PHP coding/development and X-Cart so such operation shouldn't cause them troubles).

Originally Posted by intel352

And why would files be included that have only had copyright date changes in the license at the top of the file?

4.1.9 was released in 2007. 4.1.10 is going to be released in 2008. We changed year in X-Cart files, but since this was the only change in lots of files and we have to include every single change in upgrade packs they contain DIFFs for files with the only aforementioned change as well.

That shouldn't be a big problem since such DIFFs are going to applied smoothly due to size of the change in such files.