Fwd: XDG Base directory specification

[Jonathan Blandford]

Waldo Bastian <bastian at kde.org> writes:

> An invalid directory would be mostly a "non-existing directory", no?

Kind of.  A directory in the environment can be invalid for two reasons.
It can be a valid name of a problematic directory.  For example, the
directory (or its parents) could not exist, there could be permission
problems, and temporary non-working of file systems.

Additionally, the environment could be empty, have a relative directory,
or be invalid UTF-8, where we can't possibly get a directory.  Perhaps
the spec should clarify between the two, and say something like:

"If the directory appears to be a valid directory name but isn't
 available, the program should make a good-faith effort to access it
 during the lifetime of the program.  It should let the user know about
 any problems that it runs into while trying to save.  If the directory
 name itself isn't valid, then the default environment is used."

Thoughts?
-Jonathan