GNU bug report logs - #583
Use XDG basedir spec for configuration files?

Previous Next

Full log

View this message in rfc822 format

From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
To: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>
Cc: eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu, ferkiwi+a <at> gmail.com, 583 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#583: Use XDG basedir spec for configuration files?
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2019 10:03:53 +0300

> From: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>
> Cc: 583 <at> debbugs.gnu.org,  ferkiwi+a <at> gmail.com,  eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu
> Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2019 22:17:55 -0400
> 
> IMO a true conversion of Emacs to the XDG spec would involve the
> addition of new variables (user-config-directory, user-data-directory,
> user-cache-directory, etc). Each use of user-emacs-directory would have
> to be reviewed to see where it actually belongs. For some, it would
> probably be ambiguous.

I'm afraid almost all of them will be ambiguous.  Moreover, defining a
clear enough set of rules for where to put files that will be added in
the future is a non-trivial job, and enforcing it will not be easy.  I
predict confusion and arguments.

My gut feeling is that Emacs should have one, at most 2 XDG-derived
directories, certainly not 3.  And if we want to support that
correctly, these environment variables should be accessed much earlier
in the startup process, somewhere in init_callproc and friends,
because setting user-emacs-directory in startup is too late and
creates problems, as we saw already.

We've made a small step in that direction; if we want to continue that
way, someone should volunteer to do the job of defining what files
will go were.

Previous Next

GNU bug tracking system
Copyright (C) 1999 Darren O. Benham, 1997,2003 nCipher Corporation Ltd, 1994-97 Ian Jackson.