config-path

Python library to work out which path to use for configuration folders and files in an operating system independent way.

Each operating system has particular conventions for where an application is expected to stores it configuration. The information provided to ConfigPath is used to figure out an appropiate file path or folder path for the application's configuration data.

Supports Windows, macOS and most unix systems using the 'XDG Base Directory Specification'.

ConfigPath( appname, vendor, filetype )

The vendor should be the domain name of the application provider. The appname is the name the application is know by. The filetype is the use as the suffix for a config file. Typical filetypes are .json, .ini, .xml, etc.

For example the widget application from example.com that uses a JSON configuration file:

from config_path import ConfigPath
conf_path = ConfigPath( 'widget', 'example.com', '.json' )

single configuration file

path = conf_path.saveFilePath( mkdir=False )

saveFilePath returns the path where the configuation file should be written to.

When mkdir is True the parent directory of the path will be created if it does not exist.

Note: the path returned from saveFilePath() can be different from the path returned by readFilePath().

path = conf_path.readFilePath()
if path is not None:
    # path exists and config can be read

readFilePath returns the path to an existing configuration file, otherwise None is returned. Typcially an application will use its default configuration if there is no existing configuration file.

Note: the path returned from readFilePath() can be different from the path returned by saveFilePath().

For example readFilePath may return a system wide default config until the appliaction saves a users specific configuration file.

multiple configuration files

path = conf_path.saveFolderPath( mkdir=False )

saveFolderPath returns the path to the folder that the application should save its configuration files into. The naming of the file is left to the application logic.

The path is a pathlib.Path() object for python 3 and a string for python 2

When mkdir is True the parent directory of the path will be created if it does not exist.

Note: the path returned from saveFolderPath() can be different from the path returned by readFolderPath().

path = conf_path.readFolderPath( mkdir=False )

readFolderPath returns the path to the folder that the application should use to read its configuration files.

The path is a pathlib.Path() object for python 3 and a string for python 2

When mkdir is True the parent directory of the path will be created if it does not exist.

Note: the path returned from readFolderPath() can be different from the path returned by saveFolderPath().

macOS conventions

On macOS configuration files are called preferences. They are expected to be stored in the ~/Library/Preferences folder using a file name that uses a reversed domain name.

For a file that will be {reversed-vendor}.{appname}{filetype} using the above example: com.example.widget.json.

When a folder is required the folder will be {reversed-vendor}.{appname}. For example: com.example.widget.

windows conventions

On Windows configuration files are stored in a folder that is return from a WIN32 API call. Exactly which folder is used has changed over time between Windows versions and maybe language dependent.

config_path uses the convention of combining the appname and vendor to create a path that is expected to be unique.

For a file that will be {reversed-vendor}.{appname}{filetype} using the above example: com.example.widget.json.

When a folder is required the folder will be {reversed-vendor}.{appname}. For example: com.example.widget.

all others conventions

For all systems that are not macOS or Windows config-path follows the 'XDG Base Directory Specification' for configuration data.

XDG allows for system configuration and user configuration files. The default user configuration folder is ~/.config. The default system configuration folder is /etc/xdg.

For a file that will be {reversed-vendor}.{appname}{filetype} using the above example: com.example.widget.json.

When a folder is required the folder will be {reversed-vendor}.{appname}. For example: com.example.widget.