inno-setup update file in all subdirectories where it exists - inno-setup

Question

I'm trying to create an installer that will update a single csv file, that exists in various locations depending on which of our applications a user has installed.
Our applications install inside a folder with our Company Name in Program Files.
So, Company > App1, Company > App2, Company > App3, etc. When the csv file exists, it is directly inside the App folder.
I've tried:
[Files]
Source: "file.csv"; DestDir: "{pf}\Company\*";
With various flags and functions to no avail
flag: onlyifdestfileexists
Skips everything because it doesn't exist
Check: FileExists('file.csv')
Does nothing at all
Check: FileExistsWildcard('file.csv')
Which calls a function using FindFirst() tries to create a new directory called * to install the file in, rather than overwriting the file in the directory where it was found, as does
[Files]
Source: "file.csv"; DestDir: "{pf}\Company\"; Check: FileExistsWildcard('*\file.csv')
The problem seems to have to do with the wildcard * not doing anything when used with DestDir. Instead of searching through all subfolders, it just looks for a subfolder named "*". The recursesubdirs flag of course works for iterating over subdirectories for Source, but there is no equivalent for DestDir.

Answer 1

Wildcards like that are not supported in DestDir.
If you know the names of all possible subdirectories up front (which presumably is the case as these are your own applications) then the simplest way to do this is to include multiple [Files] entries, one for each possible application. You can then use the onlyifdestfileexists flag. Note that when using the same Source path on multiple entries, only one copy of the file will be stored inside the installer, so it won't bloat the size.
If your applications support being installed into different locations (as most do) then you'll need to modify this slightly; instead of hard-coding the DestDir you'll need to have each entry look something like this:
Source: file.csv; DestDir: {code:FindAppPath|App1}; Flags: onlyifdestfileexists
with corresponding [Code] function:
function FindAppPath(AppName: String): String;
In this function, use RegQueryStringValue or other methods to look up the currently installed location of the application being searched for (via AppName, which can either be an arbitrary string of your choosing or could be part of the registry path being looked up; alternately you could write separate functions for each application if that's easier). If a given application is not installed, then return '', which will then skip installing the file due to the onlyifdestfileexists flag. Note that you will still need one entry per application, so you will need to know in advance the maximum number of possibly installed applications.
(An alternate means of skipping installation if you didn't wish to use this flag is to define a Check function eg. Check: IsAppInstalled('App1') or Check: IsApp1Installed.)
If you don't know (or don't want to rely on knowing) the maximum possible number of installed applications up front, then the only solution is to fall back to pure [Code]. You will need to have a single [Files] entry like so:
Source: file.csv; DestDir: {tmp}; AfterInstall: CopyToApplications
And then implement the CopyToApplications procedure to locate the paths to all the possible installations (again, probably via RegQueryStringValue) and then for each one:
FileCopy(ExpandConstant('{tmp}\file.csv'), AddBackslash(PathToApp) + 'file.csv');
You may also want to look at the CodeDlg example script and use CreateOutputProgressPage to provide feedback to the user while this process is going on, although it may not be necessarily if the file size is small enough.
Note that in all cases you probably want to disable uninstallation support (since each app's own individual uninstaller will take care of it); make sure you have Uninstallable=no in the [Setup] section.