more on issue #2 - api free way of getting github release info

github_last_release.sh

@@ -4,14 +4,23 @@
 #
 # Requires: http_download, is_command
 #
+# hack to extract version from output is based on
+#
+# https://github.com/golang/dep/blob/master/install.sh
+#
+#  1. tr -s '\n' ' ' --> make sure output is exactly one line
+#  2. sed 's/.*"tag_name":"//'  --> remove everything before
+#  3. sed 's/".*//' --> remove everything after
+#
+#  what remains is the version number
+#
 github_last_release() {
   owner_repo=$1
   version=$2
   test -z "$version" && version="latest"
   giturl="https://github.com/${owner_repo}/releases/${version}"
-  html=$(http_download "-" "$giturl" "Accept:application/json")
-  # remove everything before tag_name:", and then everything after the next "
-  version=$(echo "$html" | sed 's/.*"tag_name":"//' | sed 's/".*//')
+  json=$(http_download "-" "$giturl" "Accept:application/json")
+  version=$(echo "$json" | tr -s '\n' ' ' | sed 's/.*"tag_name":"//' | sed 's/".*//')
   test -z "$version" && return 1
   echo "$version"
 }