Keep up to date with the latest version of node.js

update-nodejs.bash

#!/bin/bash

sudo apt-get -qq install build-essential g++ apache2-utils libssl-dev curl

latest_dir="http://nodejs.org/dist/latest/";
latest_version=$(curl -s "$latest_dir" | grep "tar\.gz" | sed -re 's/.*?href="node-(v[0-9\.]+)\.tar\.gz".*/\1/');

cleanup() {
  rm -rf "$temp";
}

earlydeath() {
  cleanup;
  exit 1;
}

error() {
  echo >&2 "ERROR: There was a problem $1.";
  earlydeath;
}

local_version() {
  echo $(node --version);
}

if [ ! -z "`which node`" ]; then
  version=$(local_version);
  newest=$(echo -e "$latest_version\n$version" | sort -V | tail -1);
  if [ "$version" == "$newest" ]; then
    echo "Already up to date.";
    exit 0;
  fi  
fi

trapped() {
  echo >&2 "Caught signal, cleaning up...";
  earlydeath;
}

trap trapped INT TRAP HUP;

temp=$(mktemp -d '/tmp/nodejs-XXX');
curl -s "$latest_dir/node-$latest_version.tar.gz" | tar xz -C "$temp" || error "downloading or decompressing";
cd "$temp"/node-* || "with the decompressed file";
./configure --prefix=/usr || error "configuring";
JOBS=`grep processor /proc/cpuinfo | wc -l` make || error "compiling";
sudo make install || error "installing";

cleanup;

echo "node.js version now at `local_version`";

Run easily with something like this

raw="https://raw.github.com/gist/1410275/7b44c30cca9dcadab19806d43868496f4525e20a/update-nodejs.bash"
curl -s "$raw" | bash