Subject: Re: [bug#43920] [SHEPHERD PATCH] shepherd: Move log file to XDG_CACHE_DIR.

From: Jan Nieuwenhuizen <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Oct 2020 00:58:21 +0200

Ludovic Courtès writes:

Hello,

> Leo Prikler <[email-masked]> skribis:
>
>>> The previous location wasn’t perfect, but the proposed one isn’t
>>> great
>>> either: one can generally assume “rm -rf ~/.cache” won’t lose
>>> anything
>>> that cannot be reconstructed, and the log is something that cannot be
>>> reconstructed.
>> That is actually not part of the XDG specification – it merely states,
>> that non-essential files be put there.  Whether or not one considers
>> the shepherd log essential is debatable.
>
> Right, that’s my interpretation of what “cache” means.

Yes, essential is pretty vague; a cache is something that can be
re-generated.

>> You could alternatively put it under $XDG_DATA_HOME.  Some projects
>> like Xorg seem to do that.  Of course, there always remains the option
>> of having yet another environment variable or command line parameter
>> for the placement of the log file.
>
> Yup, XDG_DATA_HOME would work for me; it seems to be rather in line with
> what the XDG states and what Xorg does, as you note.
>
>   https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html
>
> WDYT, Efraim & Janneke?

Data sounds a bit strong (I would consider a database to be data), and
cache is too loose.  Otoh, losing a log can be crucial; so I'd go for
XDG_DATA_HOME.

Janneke

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Jan Nieuwenhuizen <[email-masked]> | GNU LilyPond http://lilypond.org
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