1File::HomeDir(3)      User Contributed Perl Documentation     File::HomeDir(3)
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NAME

6       File::HomeDir - Find your home and other directories on any platform
7

SYNOPSIS

9         use File::HomeDir;
10
11         # Modern Interface (Current User)
12         $home     = File::HomeDir->my_home;
13         $desktop  = File::HomeDir->my_desktop;
14         $docs     = File::HomeDir->my_documents;
15         $music    = File::HomeDir->my_music;
16         $pics     = File::HomeDir->my_pictures;
17         $videos   = File::HomeDir->my_videos;
18         $data     = File::HomeDir->my_data;
19         $dist     = File::HomeDir->my_dist_data('File-HomeDir');
20         $dist     = File::HomeDir->my_dist_config('File-HomeDir');
21
22         # Modern Interface (Other Users)
23         $home    = File::HomeDir->users_home('foo');
24         $desktop = File::HomeDir->users_desktop('foo');
25         $docs    = File::HomeDir->users_documents('foo');
26         $music   = File::HomeDir->users_music('foo');
27         $pics    = File::HomeDir->users_pictures('foo');
28         $video   = File::HomeDir->users_videos('foo');
29         $data    = File::HomeDir->users_data('foo');
30

DESCRIPTION

32       File::HomeDir is a module for locating the directories that are "owned"
33       by a user (typicaly your user) and to solve the various issues that
34       arise trying to find them consistently across a wide variety of
35       platforms.
36
37       The end result is a single API that can find your resources on any
38       platform, making it relatively trivial to create Perl software that
39       works elegantly and correctly no matter where you run it.
40
41       This module provides two main interfaces.
42
43       The first is a modern File::Spec-style interface with a consistent OO
44       API and different implementation modules to support various platforms.
45       You are strongly recommended to use this interface.
46
47       The second interface is for legacy support of the original 0.07
48       interface that exported a "home()" function by default and tied the
49       "%~" variable.
50
51       It is generally not recommended that you use this interface, but due to
52       back-compatibility reasons they will remain supported until at least
53       2010.
54
55       The "%~" interface has been deprecated. Documentation was removed in
56       2009, Unit test were removed in 2011, usage will issue warnings from
57       2012, and the interface will be removed entirely in 2015  (in line with
58       the general Perl toolchain convention of a 10 year support period for
59       legacy APIs that are potentially or actually in common use).
60
61   Platform Neutrality
62       In the Unix world, many different types of data can be mixed together
63       in your home directory (although on some Unix platforms this is no
64       longer the case, particularly for "desktop"-oriented platforms).
65
66       On some non-Unix platforms, separate directories are allocated for
67       different types of data and have been for a long time.
68
69       When writing applications on top of File::HomeDir, you should thus
70       always try to use the most specific method you can. User documents
71       should be saved in "my_documents", data that supports an application
72       but isn't normally editing by the user directory should go into
73       "my_data".
74
75       On platforms that do not make any distinction, all these different
76       methods will harmlessly degrade to the main home directory, but on
77       platforms that care File::HomeDir will always try to Do The Right
78       Thing(tm).
79

METHODS

81       Two types of methods are provided. The "my_method" series of methods
82       for finding resources for the current user, and the "users_method"
83       (read as "user's method") series for finding resources for arbitrary
84       users.
85
86       This split is necessary, as on most platforms it is much easier to find
87       information about the current user compared to other users, and indeed
88       on a number you cannot find out information such as "users_desktop" at
89       all, due to security restrictions.
90
91       All methods will double check (using a "-d" test) that a directory
92       actually exists before returning it, so you may trust in the values
93       that are returned (subject to the usual caveats of race conditions of
94       directories being deleted at the moment between a directory being
95       returned and you using it).
96
97       However, because in some cases platforms may not support the concept of
98       home directories at all, any method may return "undef" (both in scalar
99       and list context) to indicate that there is no matching directory on
100       the system.
101
102       For example, most untrusted 'nobody'-type users do not have a home
103       directory. So any modules that are used in a CGI application that at
104       some level of recursion use your code, will result in calls to
105       File::HomeDir returning undef, even for a basic home() call.
106
107   my_home
108       The "my_home" method takes no arguments and returns the main
109       home/profile directory for the current user.
110
111       If the distinction is important to you, the term "current" refers to
112       the real user, and not the effective user.
113
114       This is also the case for all of the other "my" methods.
115
116       Returns the directory path as a string, "undef" if the current user
117       does not have a home directory, or dies on error.
118
119   my_desktop
120       The "my_desktop" method takes no arguments and returns the "desktop"
121       directory for the current user.
122
123       Due to the diversity and complexity of implementions required to deal
124       with implementing the required functionality fully and completely, the
125       "my_desktop" method may or may not be implemented on each platform.
126
127       That said, I am extremely interested in code to implement "my_desktop"
128       on Unix, as long as it is capable of dealing (as the Windows
129       implementation does) with internationalisation. It should also avoid
130       false positive results by making sure it only returns the appropriate
131       directories for the appropriate platforms.
132
133       Returns the directory path as a string, "undef" if the current user
134       does not have a desktop directory, or dies on error.
135
136   my_documents
137       The "my_documents" method takes no arguments and returns the directory
138       (for the current user) where the user's documents are stored.
139
140       Returns the directory path as a string, "undef" if the current user
141       does not have a documents directory, or dies on error.
142
143   my_music
144       The "my_music" method takes no arguments and returns the directory
145       where the current user's music is stored.
146
147       No bias is made to any particular music type or music program, rather
148       the concept of a directory to hold the user's music is made at the
149       level of the underlying operating system or (at least) desktop
150       environment.
151
152       Returns the directory path as a string, "undef" if the current user
153       does not have a suitable directory, or dies on error.
154
155   my_pictures
156       The "my_pictures" method takes no arguments and returns the directory
157       where the current user's pictures are stored.
158
159       No bias is made to any particular picture type or picture program,
160       rather the concept of a directory to hold the user's pictures is made
161       at the level of the underlying operating system or (at least) desktop
162       environment.
163
164       Returns the directory path as a string, "undef" if the current user
165       does not have a suitable directory, or dies on error.
166
167   my_videos
168       The "my_videos" method takes no arguments and returns the directory
169       where the current user's videos are stored.
170
171       No bias is made to any particular video type or video program, rather
172       the concept of a directory to hold the user's videos is made at the
173       level of the underlying operating system or (at least) desktop
174       environment.
175
176       Returns the directory path as a string, "undef" if the current user
177       does not have a suitable directory, or dies on error.
178
179   my_data
180       The "my_data" method takes no arguments and returns the directory where
181       local applications should stored their internal data for the current
182       user.
183
184       Generally an application would create a subdirectory such as ".foo",
185       beneath this directory, and store its data there. By creating your
186       directory this way, you get an accurate result on the maximum number of
187       platforms. But see the documentation about "my_dist_config()" or
188       "my_dist_data()" below.
189
190       For example, on Unix you get "~/.foo" and on Win32 you get "~/Local
191       Settings/Application Data/.foo"
192
193       Returns the directory path as a string, "undef" if the current user
194       does not have a data directory, or dies on error.
195
196   my_dist_config
197         File::HomeDir->my_dist_config( $dist [, \%params] );
198
199         # For example...
200
201         File::HomeDir->my_dist_config( 'File-HomeDir' );
202         File::HomeDir->my_dist_config( 'File-HomeDir', { create => 1 } );
203
204       The "my_dist_config" method takes a distribution name as argument and
205       returns an application-specific directory where they should store their
206       internal configuration.
207
208       The base directory will be either "my_config" if the platform supports
209       it, or "my_documents" otherwise. The subdirectory itself will be
210       "BASE/Perl/Dist-Name". If the base directory is the user's homedir,
211       "my_dist_config" will be in "~/.perl/Dist-Name" (and thus be hidden on
212       all Unixes).
213
214       The optional last argument is a hash reference to tweak the method
215       behaviour. The following hash keys are recognized:
216
217       ·   create
218
219           Passing a true value to this key will force the creation of the
220           directory if it doesn't exist (remember that "File::HomeDir"'s
221           policy is to return "undef" if the directory doesn't exist).
222
223           Defaults to false, meaning no automatic creation of directory.
224
225   my_dist_data
226         File::HomeDir->my_dist_data( $dist [, \%params] );
227
228         # For example...
229
230         File::HomeDir->my_dist_data( 'File-HomeDir' );
231         File::HomeDir->my_dist_data( 'File-HomeDir', { create => 1 } );
232
233       The "my_dist_data" method takes a distribution name as argument and
234       returns an application-specific directory where they should store their
235       internal data.
236
237       This directory will be of course a subdirectory of "my_data". Platforms
238       supporting data-specific directories will use
239       "DATA_DIR/perl/dist/Dist-Name" following the common
240       "DATA/vendor/application" pattern. If the "my_data" directory is the
241       user's homedir, "my_dist_data" will be in "~/.perl/dist/Dist-Name" (and
242       thus be hidden on all Unixes).
243
244       The optional last argument is a hash reference to tweak the method
245       behaviour. The following hash keys are recognized:
246
247       ·   create
248
249           Passing a true value to this key will force the creation of the
250           directory if it doesn't exist (remember that "File::HomeDir"'s
251           policy is to return "undef" if the directory doesn't exist).
252
253           Defaults to false, meaning no automatic creation of directory.
254
255   users_home
256         $home = File::HomeDir->users_home('foo');
257
258       The "users_home" method takes a single param and is used to locate the
259       parent home/profile directory for an identified user on the system.
260
261       While most of the time this identifier would be some form of user name,
262       it is permitted to vary per-platform to support user ids or UUIDs as
263       applicable for that platform.
264
265       Returns the directory path as a string, "undef" if that user does not
266       have a home directory, or dies on error.
267
268   users_documents
269         $docs = File::HomeDir->users_documents('foo');
270
271       Returns the directory path as a string, "undef" if that user does not
272       have a documents directory, or dies on error.
273
274   users_data
275         $data = File::HomeDir->users_data('foo');
276
277       Returns the directory path as a string, "undef" if that user does not
278       have a data directory, or dies on error.
279

FUNCTIONS

281   home
282         use File::HomeDir;
283         $home = home();
284         $home = home('foo');
285         $home = File::HomeDir::home();
286         $home = File::HomeDir::home('foo');
287
288       The "home" function is exported by default and is provided for
289       compatibility with legacy applications. In new applications, you should
290       use the newer method-based interface above.
291
292       Returns the directory path to a named user's home/profile directory.
293
294       If provided no param, returns the directory path to the current user's
295       home/profile directory.
296

TO DO

298       ·   Add more granularity to Unix, and add support to VMS and other
299           esoteric platforms, so we can consider going core.
300
301       ·   Add consistent support for users_* methods
302

SUPPORT

304       This module is stored in an Open Repository at the following address.
305
306       <http://svn.ali.as/cpan/trunk/File-HomeDir>
307
308       Write access to the repository is made available automatically to any
309       published CPAN author, and to most other volunteers on request.
310
311       If you are able to submit your bug report in the form of new (failing)
312       unit tests, or can apply your fix directly instead of submitting a
313       patch, you are strongly encouraged to do so as the author currently
314       maintains over 100 modules and it can take some time to deal with non-
315       Critical bug reports or patches.
316
317       This will guarantee that your issue will be addressed in the next
318       release of the module.
319
320       If you cannot provide a direct test or fix, or don't have time to do
321       so, then regular bug reports are still accepted and appreciated via the
322       CPAN bug tracker.
323
324       <http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=File-HomeDir>
325
326       For other issues, for commercial enhancement or support, or to have
327       your write access enabled for the repository, contact the author at the
328       email address above.
329

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

331       The biggest acknowledgement goes to Chris Nandor, who wielded his
332       legendary Mac-fu and turned my initial fairly ordinary Darwin
333       implementation into something that actually worked properly everywhere,
334       and then donated a Mac OS X license to allow it to be maintained
335       properly.
336

AUTHORS

338       Adam Kennedy <adamk@cpan.org>
339
340       Sean M. Burke <sburke@cpan.org>
341
342       Chris Nandor <cnandor@cpan.org>
343
344       Stephen Steneker <stennie@cpan.org>
345

SEE ALSO

347       File::ShareDir, File::HomeDir::Win32 (legacy)
348
350       Copyright 2005 - 2012 Adam Kennedy.
351
352       Some parts copyright 2000 Sean M. Burke.
353
354       Some parts copyright 2006 Chris Nandor.
355
356       Some parts copyright 2006 Stephen Steneker.
357
358       Some parts copyright 2009-2011 Jerome Quelin.
359
360       This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
361       under the same terms as Perl itself.
362
363       The full text of the license can be found in the LICENSE file included
364       with this module.
365

POD ERRORS

367       Hey! The above document had some coding errors, which are explained
368       below:
369
370       Around line 712:
371           Non-ASCII character seen before =encoding in 'Jerome'. Assuming
372           UTF-8
373
374
375
376perl v5.16.3                      2012-10-19                  File::HomeDir(3)
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