[basedir-spec] What exactly is $XDG_DATA_HOME for ?

[David Faure]

On Wednesday 11 June 2008, Thomas Leonard wrote:
> The spec says:
> 
> "There is a single base directory relative to which user-specific data 
> files should be written. This directory is defined by the environment 
> variable $XDG_DATA_HOME."
> 
> I think "user-specific data" is very confusing here.
> 
> However, the default user (~/.local/share) and system (/usr/local/share/:/
> usr/share/) paths indicate what it is really for. In other words, it is 
> for things that could reasonably go in /usr/share.
> 
> Or, for what would result if you did:
> 
>   $ ./configure --prefix=$HOME/.local/ && make install

User-specific data can also be generated by the program at runtime,
it doesn't have to come from install time.

For instance in ~/.local/share you can find your trash directory :)

-- 
David Faure, faure at kde.org, sponsored by Trolltech to work on KDE,
Konqueror (http://www.konqueror.org), and KOffice (http://www.koffice.org).