this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
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All programs should tell you where they store config files (utcc.utoronto.ca)
submitted 1 year ago by wet_lettuce@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org
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I wholeheartedly agree with this blog post. I believe someone on here yesterday was asking about config file locations and setting them manually. This is in the same vein. I can't tell you how many times a command line method for discovering the location of a config file would have saved me 30 minutes of googling.

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[–] WildfireFailure@programming.dev 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If it's not in /etc it should be in the directory the exe file is located.

[–] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 11 points 1 year ago (4 children)

~/.config is the non-root version of /etc these days. But you just have to know that, which isn't ideal.

[–] Jummit@lemmy.one 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If you are a developer, please take a look at the XDG Base Directory Specification and try to follow it, users will be very grateful.

Short summary: Look for $XDG_CONFIG_HOME for configs and $XDG_STATE_HOME for state. If they aren't available, use the defaults (./config and .local/share).

[–] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

But what about .local/, or .appname/? It's just a mess

[–] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

~/.local is the non-root version of /usr. By .appname do you just mean a folder that a specific app made in your home for itself? Yeah, I never condone that. imo that's just a badly behaving app. It should move that folder into ~/.config.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

Configuration for root is in /root/, that is, root's home directory. /etc is for system configuration, different thing.

[–] heeplr@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

otoh, unix directory structure is far from black magic once you know it. I have yet to see an OS that does it that elegantly (leaving aside systemd)

[–] Atemu@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Certainly not. Nothing should write to /usr/bin except for the package manager in FHS distros and some distros binary directories aren't writable at all.

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

Well good because a program shouldn’t be writing to its config file either.