Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Ferret7446 303 days ago
XDG_CONFIG_HOME points to wherever you set it; that is up to the user to decide.

The default value, when XDG_CONFIG_HOME is not set, is by specification ~/.config. It does not (and should not) default to a different value on OSX.
1 comments
pasc1878 303 days ago
Why should it not. The easier case for me to defend is XDG_CACHE_HOME - if it defaults to ~/.Library/Caches then it makes life simpler on macOS as it means that you don't have to add other directories to be removed from your backups.
link
notpushkin 303 days ago
Regardless of the default value, I think we can all agree that supporting XDG_* would be a good start!
link
naikrovek 302 days ago
why are they named XDG_* like XDG_CONFIG_DIR?

Why not just CONFIG_DIR?

Doesn't matter. This whole situation is a mess, and it's still a mess in the year 2025. Clearly existing operating systems can't be changed significantly enough to change anything like this.

but we're all still afraid to write new operating systems. We cling to MacOS, FreeBSD, Linux, and Windows as if our lives depend on it. Our lives do not depend on it.

If we want a saner OS, we could have it, but we don't want it bad enough, I think. It's easier to just deal with the piles of horse manure that has been piled on top of everything. So we have a rather active bikeshed discussion on HN about whether or not to use XDG_*.

We want to bikeshed more than we want to fix anything. Like all communities, this one also disappoints me.

link
koakuma-chan 303 days ago
Can't you just std::env::var it? Why need a library? It's not even set on my MacBook though.
link
notpushkin 302 days ago
Yeah, the variable is usually unset, so you’ll want to have a default value in your code. Basically something like

  config_dir="${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/my-app"
Of course, if you decide to account for Windows / macOS conventions, it’ll be a bit trickier, but pulling in a library for that is a bit overkill, yeah.
link
pasc1878 302 days ago
Adding a library for that is not overkill but just being polite to your users setting files where the OS suggests and not putting your ideas there,
link
notpushkin 301 days ago
Adding a library has nothing to do with that. You can implement it yourself in a few lines of code, especially if you only need one path, like configs. You do need to research for caveats (e.g. check $XDG_CONFIG_HOME on Linux and not just put it into ~/.config) but it’s not rocket science.

And if you choose to just trust library authors, you are putting their ideas there instead. There’s that Rust crate that uses XDG on macOS, for example.

link