The code for that function originally predates the introduction of the function jupyter_core.paths.jupyter_data_dir which can now be used to determine the Jupyter data directory instead of initializing an instance of JupyterApp just to figure its data directory.
The code for that function originally predates the introduction of the function
jupyter_core.paths.jupyter_data_dirwhich can now be used to determine the Jupyter data directory instead of initializing an instance of JupyterApp just to figure its data directory.I figure this out while working on another PR for jupyter_server_fileid which uses the function to determine the data directory : https://github.com/jupyter-server/jupyter_server_fileid/blob/v0.9.0/jupyter_server_fileid/manager.py#L23