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.

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...

--
vjoel : Joel VanderWerf : path berkeley edu : 510 665 3407

On Sep 13, 1:37 pm, Joel VanderWerf <vj...@path.berkeley.edu> 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:

<snip>

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

On 9/13/07, Glen Holcomb <damnbigman@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/13/07, Glen Holcomb <damnbigman@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 9/13/07, Trans <transfire@gmail.com> 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?
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > T.


Rubygems has a method for finding this:

C:\>irb -rubygems
>> Gem.user_home
=> "C:\\Documents and Settings\\gthiesfeld"

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.

--
Nobu Nakada

Joel VanderWerf <vjoel@path.berkeley.edu> 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 ?
--
La politique est l'art d'empécher les gens
de se méler de ce qui les regarde.
Paul Valéry

> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Une B=E9v" "ue" =
[mailto:unbewusst.sein@wortanschahung.com.invalid]
> Sent: Friday, September 14, 2007 7:20 AM
> To: ruby-talk ML
> Subject: Re: Cross-platform Home Directory?
>=20
> 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")
=3D> #<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]

--
Phillip Gawlowski

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.

--
Olivier Renaud