the problem
What directory should your app use for storing user data? If running on macOS, you should use:
~/Library/Application Support/<AppName>
If on Windows (at least English Win XP) that should be:
C:\Documents and Settings\<User>\Application Data\Local Settings\<AppAuthor>\<AppName>
or possibly:
C:\Documents and Settings\<User>\Application Data\<AppAuthor>\<AppName>
for roaming profiles but that is another story.
On Linux (and other Unices) the dir, according to the XDG spec, is:
~/.local/share/<AppName>
appdirs to the rescue
This kind of thing is what the appdirs module is for. appdirs will help you choose an appropriate:
- user data dir (
user_data_dir) - user config dir (
user_config_dir) - user cache dir (
user_cache_dir) - site data dir (
site_data_dir) - site config dir (
site_config_dir) - user log dir (
user_log_dir)
and also:
- is a single module so other Python packages can include their own private copy
- is slightly opinionated on the directory names used. Look for "OPINION" in documentation and code for when an opinion is being applied.
some example output
On macOS:
>>> from appdirs import * >>> appname = "SuperApp" >>> appauthor = "Acme" >>> user_data_dir(appname, appauthor) '/Users/trentm/Library/Application Support/SuperApp' >>> site_data_dir(appname, appauthor) '/Library/Application Support/SuperApp' >>> user_cache_dir(appname, appauthor) '/Users/trentm/Library/Caches/SuperApp' >>> user_log_dir(appname, appauthor) '/Users/trentm/Library/Logs/SuperApp'
On Windows 7:
>>> from appdirs import * >>> appname = "SuperApp" >>> appauthor = "Acme" >>> user_data_dir(appname, appauthor) 'C:\\Users\\trentm\\AppData\\Local\\Acme\\SuperApp' >>> user_data_dir(appname, appauthor, roaming=True) 'C:\\Users\\trentm\\AppData\\Roaming\\Acme\\SuperApp' >>> user_cache_dir(appname, appauthor) 'C:\\Users\\trentm\\AppData\\Local\\Acme\\SuperApp\\Cache' >>> user_log_dir(appname, appauthor) 'C:\\Users\\trentm\\AppData\\Local\\Acme\\SuperApp\\Logs'
On Linux:
>>> from appdirs import * >>> appname = "SuperApp" >>> appauthor = "Acme" >>> user_data_dir(appname, appauthor) '/home/trentm/.local/share/SuperApp >>> site_data_dir(appname, appauthor) '/usr/local/share/SuperApp' >>> site_data_dir(appname, appauthor, multipath=True) '/usr/local/share/SuperApp:/usr/share/SuperApp' >>> user_cache_dir(appname, appauthor) '/home/trentm/.cache/SuperApp' >>> user_log_dir(appname, appauthor) '/home/trentm/.cache/SuperApp/log' >>> user_config_dir(appname) '/home/trentm/.config/SuperApp' >>> site_config_dir(appname) '/etc/xdg/SuperApp' >>> os.environ['XDG_CONFIG_DIRS'] = '/etc:/usr/local/etc' >>> site_config_dir(appname, multipath=True) '/etc/SuperApp:/usr/local/etc/SuperApp'
AppDirs for convenience
>>> from appdirs import AppDirs
>>> dirs = AppDirs("SuperApp", "Acme")
>>> dirs.user_data_dir
'/Users/trentm/Library/Application Support/SuperApp'
>>> dirs.site_data_dir
'/Library/Application Support/SuperApp'
>>> dirs.user_cache_dir
'/Users/trentm/Library/Caches/SuperApp'
>>> dirs.user_log_dir
'/Users/trentm/Library/Logs/SuperApp'
Per-version isolation
If you have multiple versions of your app in use that you want to be able to run side-by-side, then you may want version-isolation for these dirs:
>>> from appdirs import AppDirs
>>> dirs = AppDirs("SuperApp", "Acme", version="1.0")
>>> dirs.user_data_dir
'/Users/trentm/Library/Application Support/SuperApp/1.0'
>>> dirs.site_data_dir
'/Library/Application Support/SuperApp/1.0'
>>> dirs.user_cache_dir
'/Users/trentm/Library/Caches/SuperApp/1.0'
>>> dirs.user_log_dir
'/Users/trentm/Library/Logs/SuperApp/1.0'
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