Is there a way to detect if the System is XDG independently of the environment variables?

Jesús Gómez jgomo3 at gmail.com
Fri Mar 29 17:18:35 UTC 2024


Hi.

I understand that the XDG_* environment variables are options for the users
to customize their system, but the lack of them doesn't mean that the
system is not following XDG.

I've been thinking about this, and the more I read the specifications, it
seems to me that "Systems" don't have that responsibility and it is just an
decision of the applications to follow the specifications or not.

I'm thinking this because of the Clojure CLI tool.  I've been discussing
about this with the maintainers and there are 2 options:

1. Or Clojure could detect that the system is following the XDG
specifications (even when no XDG environment variables are in place).
2. Define a flag at any time (installation, execution, packaging, etc., I
think they will decide that part) for following these specs.

I think the more probable path is the flag, and it corresponds with the
idea that the System doesn't have a responsibility to express whether it
follows or not the specifications; but still, given only curiosity, I would
still like to know if the Systems can publish that or if an application can
detect that.

Thank you!
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