Wishlist: find a named config file in all config directories

[takluyver]

Apologies if I'm missing an easy way to do this with the existing methods, but I'd like a method to find instances of a config file from all the directories on the search path, so that user config can be merged with system config.

• find_config_file() only finds the first such file on the search path - I want them all
• list_config_files() lists files in a given subdirectory - I want to specify the filename

This is what I've written in my application to do this (it's clumsy code, because I'm new to rust, but it might make it clearer what I mean):

fn find_config_files<P>(relpath: P) -> Vec<PathBuf> where P:AsRef<Path> {
    let basedirs = xdg::BaseDirectories::new().unwrap();
    let mut config_dirs = basedirs.get_config_dirs();
    config_dirs.reverse();  // Ordered from least preferred to most preferred
    config_dirs.push(basedirs.get_config_home());
    println!("XDG Config dirs: {:?}", config_dirs);
    let mut files = Vec::new();
    for dir in config_dirs {
        let file = dir.join(&relpath);
        if file.is_file() {
            files.push(file);
        }
    }
    files
}

[whitequark]

Seems like an iterator would be in order here. It can be emulated slightly more elegantly than you did it with:

let basedirs = xdg::BaseDirectories::new().unwrap();
let config_dirs = [basedirs.get_config_home()].iter();
let config_dirs = config_dirs.chain(basedirs.get_config_dirs().rev());
for dir in config_dirs {
  ...
}

[takluyver]

Thanks, that is more elegant. Shall I make a pull request? Do you want it just for config, or for data as well? I think it makes most sense for config, but it might be worth having both for symmetry.

[whitequark]

Let's go with both, I can see uses for either. A PR sounds good. Do you know how to make new iterators?

[takluyver]

I haven't made an iterator before, but do you mean like it's explained here, or is there a better way?

[whitequark]

Oh I forgot how cool the Rust community is. This saves me the hassle of explaining it!

[takluyver]

Great, I'll give it a go :-)