Cross-platform Home Directory?

Ruby
1

I have a little app that needs to store session data. I assume the
best place to store it is in one’s home directory, but I need this app
to be cross-platform. I glanced through all rbconfig.rb’s
Config::CONFIG settings but did not see anything for it. How does one
access a cross-platform home directory?

Thanks,
T.

2

There’s much more to this then I ever imagined. Thanks for all the
answers, certainly enough to here to go on. Thanks.

T.

P.S. Seems like Launchy could use this functionality --maybe merge the
Platform gem to make a strong single lib rather than two separate libs
– just a thought.

3

Olivier R. wrote:

This is how I do this :
home_directory = Dir.chdir {|path| path}

The doc for Dir.chdir says that without argument, this method looks for
environnement variables HOME or LOGDIR. And with a block, the directory
is changed only inside the block, and restored right after.

–
Olivier R.

At first I would just check ENV to see if HOME or USERPROFILE was set.
Then
some one told me about the Platform gem :slight_smile:

You know, the OOP thing gives me a nice idea of how to use that hehe.

TerryP.

4

Hi,

At Fri, 14 Sep 2007 04:19:04 +0900,
Trans wrote in [ruby-talk:268970]:

I have a little app that needs to store session data. I assume the
best place to store it is in one’s home directory, but I need this app
to be cross-platform. I glanced through all rbconfig.rb’s
Config::CONFIG settings but did not see anything for it. How does one
access a cross-platform home directory?

There is no static value.

FYI, in 1.9, if ENV[“HOME”] isn’t set, it will be set to

  1. ENV[“HOMEDRIVE”] + ENV[“HOMEPATH”]
  2. ENV[“USERPROFILE”] or
  3. “Personal” special folder
    in the above order.
5

On 9/13/07, Trans [email protected] wrote:

What do you mean by “cross-platform home directory”? How is this
directory
accessed by the user, Samba, NTFS, some other means?

–
“Hey brother Christian with your high and mighty errand, Your actions
speak
so loud, I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”

-Greg Graffin (Bad Religion)

6

Trans a écrit :

I have a little app that needs to store session data. I assume the
best place to store it is in one’s home directory, but I need this app
to be cross-platform. I glanced through all rbconfig.rb’s
Config::CONFIG settings but did not see anything for it. How does one
access a cross-platform home directory?

Thanks,
T.

This is how I do this :
home_directory = Dir.chdir {|path| path}

The doc for Dir.chdir says that without argument, this method looks for
environnement variables HOME or LOGDIR. And with a block, the directory
is changed only inside the block, and restored right after.

7

Trans wrote:

I have a little app that needs to store session data. I assume the
best place to store it is in one’s home directory

Everyone’s helped you with ways to find the home directory, but on
Windows
this is not normally the right place to store session data. That’s what
Application Data is for. Make a directory under there for your
application.
Configuration data (user-modifiable but less frequently-changing) may be
stored in the registry.

The Windows certification documents describe where you should put stuff.

Clifford H…

8

Joel VanderWerf wrote:

when /win32/

I think Mac OS X should have the traditional unix variables set, like
${HOME}
and ${EDITOR} but I don’t own a mac to find out :’(.

9

On 9/13/07, Glen H. [email protected] wrote:

T.
-Greg Graffin (Bad Religion)
I probably meant NFS rather than NTFS

–
“Hey brother Christian with your high and mighty errand, Your actions
speak
so loud, I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”

-Greg Graffin (Bad Religion)

10

case RUBY_PLATFORM
when /win32/
ENV[‘APPDATA’] ||
ENV[‘USERPROFILE’] ||
ENV[‘HOME’]

As HOME usually isn’t set on windows, the existence of the variable
could indicate that the user would like to override the windows
default. I would thus check for HOME first.

Also, under cygwin ruby all three variables are set, but APPDATA and
USERPROFILE are “inherited” from the windows environment and are by
default set as Windows path while HOME usually is set as cygwin path.
In certain situations, this could cause certain difficulties, eg when
calling external programs.

It seems the trick with chdir doesn’t work when neither HOME nor
LOGDIR is set – as it is usually the case under Windows, I think.

11

On 9/13/07, Glen H. [email protected] wrote:

Thanks,
T.

Rubygems has a method for finding this:

C:>irb -rubygems

Gem.user_home
=> “C:\Documents and Settings\gthiesfeld”

12

Trans wrote:

I have a little app that needs to store session data. I assume the
best place to store it is in one’s home directory, but I need this app
to be cross-platform. I glanced through all rbconfig.rb’s
Config::CONFIG settings but did not see anything for it. How does one
access a cross-platform home directory?

This is one way of guessing:

case RUBY_PLATFORM
when /win32/
ENV[‘APPDATA’] ||
ENV[‘USERPROFILE’] ||
ENV[‘HOME’]

else
ENV[‘HOME’] ||
File.expand_path(’~’)
end

Typical values:

ENV[‘APPDATA’] == “C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data”
ENV[‘USERPROFILE’] == “C:\Documents and Settings\username”

(This is from my ‘preferences’ lib.)

I have no idea what is right on OS X. I’m sure someone has thought this
through in more detail…

13

Joel VanderWerf wrote:

when /win32/

I think Mac OS X should have the traditional unix variables set, like
${HOME}
and ${EDITOR} but I don’t own a mac to find out :’(.

14

On Sep 15, 2007, at 2:47 AM, Terry P. wrote:

I think Mac OS X should have the traditional unix variables set,
like ${HOME}
and ${EDITOR} but I don’t own a mac to find out :’(.

It does. You don’t even have to own one to find out. You can find it
out in Unix in a Nutshell.
Those variables are set in any one of the several possible files that
configure the shell. OS X uses Bash as the default shell.
(older versions used Tcsh as the default shell, but it’s similar
enough.)
It’s as Unix as any *nix

15

Joel VanderWerf [email protected] wrote:

I have no idea what is right on OS X.

ENV[ ‘HOME’ ]

for example my “home” is :

/Users/yt

(never tried the File.expand_path(‘~’) ) BUT on Mac OS X shell ~ expand
to home.

also i worry about the way win* representent pathes with \

does that means that, in ruby, there is no platform-independant way to
representant pathes, as, for example in Java ?

16

On Sep 13, 1:37 pm, Joel VanderWerf [email protected] wrote:

Trans wrote:

I have a little app that needs to store session data. I assume the
best place to store it is in one’s home directory, but I need this app
to be cross-platform. I glanced through all rbconfig.rb’s
Config::CONFIG settings but did not see anything for it. How does one
access a cross-platform home directory?

This is one way of guessing:

I think the appdata directory is where you want it for MS Windows. You
can use win32-dir, since the environment variable may not be defined:

when /mswin/
require ‘win32/dir’
Dir::APPDATA

Regards,

Dan

17

-----Original Message-----
From: Clifford H. [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2007 6:25 AM
To: ruby-talk ML
Subject: Re: Cross-platform Home Directory?

Everyone’s helped you with ways to find the home directory, but on
Windows this is not normally the right place to store session data.
That’s what Application Data is for. Make a directory under there for your
application. Configuration data (user-modifiable but less
frequently-changing)
may be stored in the registry.

ENV[“APPDATA”] produces the Application Data directory. Best to use
that:

ENV[“APPDATA”]
=> “C:\Users\CynicalRyan\AppData\Roaming”
exit

Since it is in a different location from Windows XP in Vista (the above
path
is a Vista path).

The Windows certification documents describe where you should put
stuff.

Are these available on MSDN?

18

Joel VanderWerf wrote:

when /win32/

I think Mac OS X should have the traditional unix variables set, like
${HOME}
and ${EDITOR} but I don’t own a mac to find out :’(.

19

-----Original Message-----
From: “Une Bév” “ue” [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, September 14, 2007 7:20 AM
To: ruby-talk ML
Subject: Re: Cross-platform Home Directory?

does that means that, in ruby, there is no platform-independant way to
representant pathes, as, for example in Java ?

8:31:09.25 C:\Users\CynicalRyan

ls gems.txt
gems.txt

8:31:14.01 C:\Users\CynicalRyan

irb --simple-prompt

File.open(“c:/Users/CynicalRyan/gems.txt”)
=> #<File:c:/Users/CynicalRyan/gems.txt>

ruby -v
ruby 1.8.6 (2007-03-13 patchlevel 0) [i386-mswin32]

ver

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6000]