Reading the Download Filename

Note

Our versioning policy was updated in October 2018. Beginning with SpongeAPI 7.1, the following information applies. See Older Versions of SpongeForge for information on older versions.

When you download files, the name of the file will provide some important version information. The following sections describe the information provided.

SpongeForge

The format of the SpongeForge download filename is:

spongeforge-<MCVersion>-<ForgeBuild>-<APIMajor>.<LatestAPIMinorRelease>.<RecommendedVersion(-RC<BuildNumber>)>.jar

`MCVersion`	The Minecraft version. Only clients compatible with this version can connect.
`ForgeBuild`	The Forge build that SpongeForge is built against and is guaranteed to be compatible
`APIMajor`	The major version of SpongeAPI implemented by this file (the `X` in semantic versioning).
`LatestAPI` `MinorRelease`	The minor version of SpongeAPI implemented by this file (the `Y` in semantic versioning).
`Recommended` `Version`	The released version of the implementation when not followed by `-RC<BuildNumber>` (the `Z` in semantic versioning).
`-RC` `<BuildNumber>`	The build number in development for the next recommended release. When a build number is present, the `RecommendedVersion` has not been released yet.

The Forge Build in the filename specifies the version of Forge this version of SpongeForge used during development and testing. The two versions are guaranteed to work without any issues. We tend to use the latest Recommended Build of Forge for this purpose.

Note

Normal Forge mods can usually run on any build of Forge for a given Minecraft version (e.g. 1.12.2) without any problem. However, SpongeForge needs to access, among other things, internal parts of Forge, which most mods shouldn’t be touching, let alone modifying as Sponge does. Since Forge is free to change their internal code whenever they want to, its normal guarantee of backwards-compatibility doesn’t apply to SpongeForge. Feel free to use more recent versions of Forge than the one used for SpongeForge, but we can’t always guarantee compatibility.

Warning

When investigating crash issues, you can freely try newer versions of Forge than listed on the SpongeForge Jar. However, it is recommended to also check with the matching version, to make sure your issue is not related to a version mismatch. Even though there will be no guarantee of compatibility, please report any breakage to the issue tracker, so that SpongeForge can be updated.

Examples

SpongeForge Jar files will always follow this naming scheme to allow you to easily identify compatibility.

For example, the file name spongeforge-1.12.2-2768-7.1.4.jar is compatible with Minecraft version 1.12.2, was built with Forge 14.23.5.2768 (Build 2768), guarantees compatibility with SpongeAPI 7.1.0, is a recommended version, and is the 4 th release of SpongeForge with this API.

Another example is the file name spongeforge-1.12.2-2768-7.1.5-RC3505.jar. This file is compatible with Minecraft version 1.12.2, was built with Forge 14.23.5.2768 (Build 2768), guarantees compatibility with SpongeAPI 7.1.0, is not a recommended version, and is build number 3505 in development, which will be the 5 th release of SpongeForge once this version is released.

SpongeVanilla

The information for SpongeVanilla is identical to SpongeForge except that SpongeVanilla does not contain a Forge build number. So, the above examples of SpongeForge jar files will look like the following for SpongeVanilla:

spongevanilla-1.12.2-7.1.4.jar and spongevanilla-1.12.2-7.1.5-RC148.jar

SpongeAPI

The format of the filename is:

spongeapi-<APIMajor>.<LatestAPIMinorRelease>.0-shaded.jar

OR

spongeapi-<APIMajor>.<LatestAPIMinorRelease>.0-<Date>.<Time>-<BuildNumber>-shaded.jar

OR

spongeapi-<APIMajor>.<LatestAPIMinorRelease>.0-SNAPSHOT.jar

`APIMajor`	The major version of SpongeAPI implemented by this file (the `X` in semantic versioning).
`LatestAPI` `MinorRelease`	The minor version of SpongeAPI implemented by this file (the `Y` in semantic versioning).
`Date`	The date when the build job ran.
`Time`	The time when the build job ran.
`<BuildNumber>`	The build number of Sponge. Supply this number when reporting bugs or seeking support.

Note

The first format without the build information is the Release and Recommended Build format (e.g., spongeapi-7.1.0-shaded.jar).

The second format with the build information is the Latest format when the file is downloaded with a web browser. This version is still in development (e.g., spongeapi-7.2.0-20190224.183500-15-shaded.jar).

The third format without the build information is the Latest format when the file is downloaded by Gradle or Maven or is created by the build process. This version is still in development (e.g., spongeapi-7.2.0-SNAPSHOT.jar).

See our build system page for an explanation of the -shaded label.