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Re: [Nano-devel] proposal to add support for the XDG base directory spec


From: Benno Schulenberg
Subject: Re: [Nano-devel] proposal to add support for the XDG base directory spec
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2017 18:11:25 +0200
User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.3.0


Op  4-10-2017 om 22:39 schreef Brand Huntsman:
On Wed, 4 Oct 2017 21:12:17 +0200 Benno Schulenberg <address@hidden>
wrote:
Where should they go then?  In $XDG_DATA_HOME?

In $XDG_CONFIG_HOME, they are config files, in a way.

That is stretching the meaning of "config file".  Past search strings and
cursor positions and executed commands are not configuration, they are
entirely comparable to the recently-used things in other programs.  That's
why my first idea was to put them in $XDG_CACHE_HOME.  They are non-essential
data files -- no real harm is done when they are lost, but... it *would* be a
nuisance.  So they are not cache, they are not config, so they must be data:
data that the program produces and wants to keep for later reference.

Where is Simon?  He seems to be well-versed in the XDG stuff.  Simon, if
you're not subscribed to nano-devel, here is the preceding discussion:
  http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/nano-devel/2017-10/msg00006.html

$XDG_DATA_HOME feels
like it should only be for files that override static files from /usr/share/,
the user-level equivalent of /usr/local/share/.

That would have been an interesting mechanism: that the user doesn't need
to redefine a syntax that has been included by /etc/nanorc but that she can
simply override the reading of a /usr/share/nano/xxx.nanorc file by putting
an xxx.nanorc file in $XDG_DATA_HOME.

But... for nano, those nanorc files in /usr/share/nano are configuration
files.  They are example files that the user can copy and edit to suit
their color tastes.  So what the XDG spec calls DATA is used by nano to
store CONFIG stuff.  :|

Gtk/Gnome programs do however
store a recently used list in $XDG_DATA_HOME.

Where else?  It's not cache: you don't want to lose it.  And it's not
configuration: you don't want the user to fiddle with them.  (Binary
config files are an abomination and should be destroyed.)

Benno



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