python: where to put application data that can be edited by computer users

Question

I'm working on a really simple python package for our internal use, and want to package it as a .egg file, and when it's installed/used I want it to access a text file that is placed in an appropriate place on the computer.

So where is the best place to put application data in python? (that is meant to be edited by users) How do I get my python package to automatically install a default file there?

note: I know about the Windows application data directory, but would like to avoid it, as it's nonportable and kind of cumbersome both for users to access and for my application to access.

well, probably windows, but tying it to a specific OS seems clunky. it's not somewhere in the site-packages dir? — Jason S, May 17 '10 at 20:43

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered May 17 '10 at 21:07

3

os.path.expanduser('~')

answered May 17 '10 at 21:07

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

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that's useful but it's the user's home directory, not the appropriate application directory (which is ~/Application Data on WinXP, ~/Library for Mac OSX) – Jason S Mar 16 '11 at 15:17
@Jason: Sure, but that's the easy part. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Mar 16 '11 at 15:25
You can't. But you can put them in a mapping and then use `platform` to decide which you should use. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Mar 16 '11 at 15:28
Don't forget that some platforms will localize the paths used too. – johnny Jul 20 '12 at 22:38

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 14 '12 at 18:33

0

Each OS will have it's own directory where application data is expected to exist. There does not appear to be a method that provides this path in a platform-independent manner. You can write your own function to do this for you by checking os.name and then returning the appropriate value depending on the result.

edited Nov 14 '12 at 18:33

Mike

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answered May 17 '10 at 20:58

unholysampler

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python: where to put application data that can be edited by computer users

2 Answers2