XDG Base Directory support

Related articles

• dotfiles
• Xdg user directories

This article exists to catalog the growing set of software using the XDG Base Directory Specification introduced in 2003. This is here to demonstrate the viability of this specification by listing commonly found dotfiles and their support status. For those not currently supporting the Base Directory Specification, workarounds will be demonstrated to emulate it instead.

The workarounds will be limited to anything not involving patching the source, executing code stored in environment variables or compile-time options. The rationale for this is that configurations should be portable across systems and having compile-time options prevent that.

Hopefully this will provide a source of information about exactly what certain kinds of dotfiles are and where they come from.

XDG Base Directory specification

Please read the full specification. This section will attempt to break down the essence of what it tries to achieve.

Only XDG_RUNTIME_DIR is set by default through pam_systemd. It is up to the user to explicitly define the other variables, using absolute paths that point to existing directories.

User directories

• XDG_CONFIG_HOME
  • Where user-specific configurations should be written (analogous to /etc).
  • Should default to $HOME/.config.

• XDG_CACHE_HOME
  • Where user-specific non-essential (cached) data should be written (analogous to /var/cache).
  • Should default to $HOME/.cache.

• XDG_DATA_HOME
  • Where user-specific data files should be written (analogous to /usr/share).
  • Should default to $HOME/.local/share.

• XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
  • Used for non-essential, user-specific data files such as sockets, named pipes, etc.
  • Not required to have a default value; warnings should be issued if not set or equivalents provided.
  • Must be owned by the user with an access mode of 0700.
  • Filesystem fully featured by standards of OS.
  • Must be on the local filesystem.
  • May be subject to periodic cleanup.
  • Modified every 6 hours or set sticky bit if persistence is desired.
  • Can only exist for the duration of the user's login.
  • Should not store large files as it may be mounted as a tmpfs.

System directories

• XDG_DATA_DIRS
  • List of directories seperated by : (analogous to PATH).
  • Should default to /usr/local/share:/usr/share.

• XDG_CONFIG_DIRS
  • List of directories seperated by : (analogous to PATH).
  • Should default to /etc/xdg.

Contributing

When contributing make sure to use the correct section.

Nothing should require code evaluation (such as vim and VIMINIT), patches or compile-time options to gain support and anything which does must be deemed hardcoded. Additionally if the process is too error prone or difficult, such as Haskell's cabal or eclipse, they should also be considered as hardcoded.

• The first column should be the project name, ideally the command name if it is not ambigious, linked to their website or an appropriate internal wiki article.

• The second column is for any legacy files and directories the project had (one per line), this is done so people can find them even if they are no longer read.

• In the third, try to find the commit or version a project switched to XDG Base Directory or any open discussions and include them in the next two columns (two per line).

• The last column should include any appropriate workarounds or solutions. Please verify that your solution is correct and functional.

Supported

Application	Legacy Path	Supported Since	Discussion	Notes
aerc
antimicro	~/.antimicro	edba864	[1]
aria2	~/.aria2	8bc1d37	[2]
blender	~/.blender	4293f473	[3]
burp		f2388e9
chromium	~/.chromium	23057	[4] [5]
citra	~/.citra-emu	f7c3193fec	[6]
composer	~/.composer	1.0.0-beta1	[7]
cower		8b70805
d-feet	~/.d-feet	7f6104b
dconf
dolphin-emu	~/.dolphin-emu	a498c68	[8]
dr14-meter		7e777ca64	[9]	Hardcoded $HOME/.config/dr14meter
dunst		78b6e2b1	[10]
dwb
fish
fontconfig	~/.fontconfig ~/.fonts	8c255fb1		Use "$XDG_DATA_HOME"/fonts to store fonts instead.
fontforge	~/.FontForge ~/.PfaEdit	e4c2cc7432	[11] [12]
freerdp	~/.freerdp	edf6e7258d
gconf	~/.gconf	fc28caa7	[13]
git	~/.gitconfig	0d94427e
gstreamer	~/.gstreamer-0.10	4e36f93924cf	[14]
gtk3
htop	~/.htoprc	93233a67
i3	~/.i3	7c130fb54
i3status	~/.i3status.conf	c3f7fc4994
imagemagick
inkscape	~/.inkscape	0.47	[15]
latexmk	~/.latexmkrc
lftp	~/.lftp	21dc400	[16]
lgogdownloader	~/.gogdownloader	d430af63d000	[17]
LibreOffice		a6f56f70 25bd2eec	[18]
livestreamer	~/.livestreamerrc	ea805917	[19]
llpp		3ab86f0cb		Currently llpp places the configuration directly under XDG_CONFIG_HOME instead of creating a directory.
mc	~/.mc	1b9957058 0b7115647 ce401d797	[20]
Mercurial	~/.hgrc	354020079723 4.2		XDG_CONFIG_HOME/hg/hgrc.
mesa		87ab26b2ab		XDG_CACHE_HOME/mesa
milkytracker	~/.milkytracker_config	eb487c55	[21]
mintty	~/.minttyrc	cff1bd8f v2.3.7.	[22]
mpd	~/.mpdconf	87b73284
mpv	~/.mpv	cb250d490	[23]
mutt	~/.mutt	42fee7585f	[24]
mypaint	~/.mypaint	cf723b74cd
ncmpcpp	~/.ncmpcpp	38d9f811 27cd86e0	[25] [26]	ncmpcpp_directory should be set to avoid an error.log file in ~/.ncmpcpp.
neovim	~/.nvim ~/.nvimlog ~/.nviminfo	1ca5646bb	[27] [28]
newsbeuter	~/.newsbeuter	3c57824c5	[29]	It is required to create both directories [30]: $ mkdir -p "$XDG_DATA_HOME"/newsbeuter "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/newsbeuter
OfflineIMAP	~/.offlineimaprc	5150de5	[31]
opentyrian	~/.opentyrian	8d45ff2	[32]
pcsx2	~/.pcsx2	87f1e8f77 a9020c606 3b22f0fb0 0a012aec2	[33] [34]
pip	~/.pip	6.0	[35]
ppsspp	~/.ppsspp	132fe47c7d	[36]
procps-ng	~/.toprc	af53e170b9	[37] [38]
orbment
pacman	~/.makepkg.conf	80eca94c8	[39]
PulseAudio	~/.pulse ~/.pulse-cookie	59a8618dcd9 87ae8307057 9ab510a6921 4c195bcc9d5	[40]
pyroom
qutebrowser
qtile		fd8686e 66d704b 51cff01	[41]	Some optional bar widgets can create files and directories in non-compliant paths, but most often these are still configurable.
rclone	~/.rclone.conf	9d362589	[42]
retroarch
rr	~/.rr	02e7d41e	[43]
Snes9x	~/.snes9x	19864677	[44]	By default configuration is blank, is intended that the user fill it at they will (throw the gui or manually) before launch a rom
sublime-text-devAUR				Cache is placed in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/sublime-text-3/Cache instead of expected $XDG_CACHE_HOME/sublime-text-3.
surfraw	~/.surfraw.conf ~/.surfraw.bookmarks	3e4591d8 bd8c427d f57fc718
sway	~/.sway/config	614393c09	[45]
systemd
termite
transmission	~/.transmission	5517	[46]
util-linux		570b32100
uzbl		c6fd63a	[47]
vimb
VirtualBox	~/.VirtualBox	4.3	[48]
vis	~/.vis	[49]	68a25c75 d138908c
VLC media player	~/.vlcrc	16f32e15	[50]
warsow	~/.warsow-2.x	98ece3f	[51]
wireshark	~/.wireshark	b0b53fa5
xsettingsd	~/.xsettingsd	4ecd7be
xmonad	~/.xmonad	40fc10b6	[52] [53]	Alternatively the environments XMONAD_CONFIG_HOME, XMONAD_DATA_HOME, and XMONAD_CACHE_HOME are also available.

Partial

Application	Legacy Path	Supported Since	Discussion	Notes
abook	~/.abook			$ abook --config "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/abook/abookrc \ --datafile "$XDG_CACHE_HOME"/abook/addressbook
Anki	~/Anki ~/Documents/Anki		[54] [55]	$ anki -b "$XDG_DATA_HOME"/Anki
aspell	~/.aspell.conf
Atom	~/.atom		[56]	$ export ATOM_HOME="$XDG_DATA_HOME"/atom
cargo	~/.cargo		[57] [58] [59]	$ export CARGO_HOME="$XDG_DATA_HOME"/cargo
ccache	~/.ccache			$ export CCACHE_DIR="$XDG_CACHE_HOME"/ccache
ChezScheme	~/.chezscheme_history			$ petite --eehistory "$XDG_DATA_HOME"/chezscheme/history
conky	~/.conkyrc	00481ee	[60]	$ conky --config="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/conky/conkyrc
coreutils	~/.dircolors			$ source "$(dircolors "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/dircolors)"
crawl	~/.crawl			The trailing slash is required: $ export CRAWL_DIR="$XDG_DATA_HOME"/crawl/
dict	~/.dictrc			$ dict -c "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/dict/dictrc
ELinks	~/.elinks			$ export ELINKS_CONFDIR="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/elinks
emscripten	~/.emscripten ~/.emscripten_sanity ~/.emscripten_ports ~/.emscripten_cache__last_clear		3624	$ export EM_CONFIG="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/emscripten/config $ export EM_CACHE="$XDG_CACHE_HOME"/emscripten/cache $ export EM_PORTS="$XDG_DATA_HOME"/emscripten/cache $ emcc --em-config "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/emscripten/config \ --em-cache "$XDG_CACHE_HOME"/emscripten/cache
gdb	~/.gdbinit			$ gdb -nh -x "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/gdb/init
get_iplayer	~/.get_iplayer			$ export GETIPLAYERUSERPREFS="$XDG_DATA_HOME"/get_iplayer
GIMP	~/.gimp-2.8 ~/.thumbnails	60e0cfe	[61] [62]	$ export GIMP2_DIRECTORY="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/gimp
gliv	~/.glivrc			$ gliv --glivrc="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/gliv/glivrc
GnuPG	~/.gnupg		[63] [64]	$ export GNUPGHOME="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/gnupg $ gpg2 --homedir "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/gnupg
Google Earth	~/.googleearth			Some paths can be changed with the KMLPath and CachePath options in ~/.config/Google/GoogleEarthPlus.conf
GQ LDAP client	~/.gq ~/.gq-state	1.51		$ export GQRC="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/gqrc $ export GQSTATE="$XDG_DATA_HOME"/gq/gq-state $ mkdir -p "$(dirname "$GQSTATE")"
gradle	~/.gradle		[65]	$ export GRADLE_USER_HOME="$XDG_DATA_HOME"/gradle
gtk	~/.gtkrc			$ export GTK_RC_FILES="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/gtk-1.0/gtkrc
gtk2	~/.gtkrc-2.0			$ export GTK2_RC_FILES="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/gtk-2.0/gtkrc
httpie	~/.httpie		[66]	$ export HTTPIE_CONFIG_DIR="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/httpie
ipython/jupyter	~/.ipython			$ export IPYTHONDIR="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/jupyter $ export JUPYTER_CONFIG_DIR="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/jupyter
irssi	~/.irssi		[67]	$ irssi --config="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/irssi/config \ --home="$XDG_DATA_HOME"/irssi
isync	~/.mbsyncrc			$ mbsync -c "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/isync/mbsyncrc
less	~/.lesshst			$ mkdir -p "$XDG_CACHE_HOME"/less $ export LESSHISTFILE="$XDG_CACHE_HOME"/less/history $ export LESSHISTFILE=- can be used to disable this feature. $ export LESSKEY="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/less/lesskey
libdvdcss	~/.dvdcss		[68]	$ export DVDCSS_CACHE="$XDG_DATA_HOME"/dvdcss
libice	~/.ICEauthority		[69]	$ export ICEAUTHORITY="$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR"/ICEauthority
libx11	~/.XCompose			$ export XCOMPOSEFILE="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/X11/xcompose
ltrace	~/.ltrace.conf			$ ltrace -F "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/ltrace/ltrace.conf
maven	~/.m2			$ mvn -gs "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/maven/settings.xml settings.xml <settings xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/settings-1.0.0.xsd"> ... <localRepository>${env.XDG_CACHE_HOME}/maven/repository</localRepository> ... </settings>
Mathematica	~/.Mathematica			$ export MATHEMATICA_USERBASE="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/mathematica
mednafen	~/.mednafen			$ export MEDNAFEN_HOME="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/mednafen
moc	~/.moc			$ mocp -M "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/moc $ mocp -O MOCDir="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/moc
MPlayer	~/.mplayer			$ export MPLAYER_HOME="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/mplayer
ncurses	~/.terminfo			Precludes system path searching: $ export TERMINFO="$XDG_DATA_HOME"/terminfo $ export TERMINFO_DIRS="$XDG_DATA_HOME"/terminfo:/usr/share/terminfo
ncmpc	~/.ncmpc			ncmpc -f "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/ncmpc/config
notmuch	~/.notmuch-config		[70]	$ export NOTMUCH_CONFIG="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/notmuch/notmuchrc $ export NMBGIT="$XDG_DATA_HOME"/notmuch/nmbug
npm	~/.npm ~/.npmrc		[71]	$ export NPM_CONFIG_USERCONFIG=$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/npm/npmrc npmrc cache=$XDG_CACHE_HOME/npm prefix=$XDG_DATA_HOME/npm
NVIDIA, CUDA	~/.nv			$ export __GL_SHADER_DISK_CACHE_PATH="$XDG_CACHE_HOME"/nv $ export CUDA_CACHE_PATH="$XDG_CACHE_HOME"/nv
nvidia-settings	~/.nvidia-settings-rc			$ nvidia-settings --config="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/nvidia/settings
openscad	~/.OpenSCAD	7c3077b0f	[72]	Does not fully honour XDG Base Directory Specification, see [73] Currently it hard-codes ~/.local/share.
OpenSSL	~/.rnd			Seeding file .rnd's location can be set with RANDFILE environment variable per FAQ.
pass	~/.password-store			$ export PASSWORD_STORE_DIR="$XDG_DATA_HOME"/pass
pidgin	~/.purple			$ pidgin --config="$XDG_DATA_HOME"/purple
PulseAudio	~/.esd_auth			Very likely generated by the module-esound-protocol-unix.so module. It can be configured to use a different location but it makes much more sense to just comment out this module in /etc/pulse/default.pa or "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/pulse/default.pa.
python-setuptools	~/.python-eggs			$ export PYTHON_EGG_CACHE="$XDG_CACHE_HOME"/python-eggs
readline	~/.inputrc			$ export INPUTRC="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/readline/inputrc
rlwrap	~/.*_history		[74]	$ export RLWRAP_HOME="$XDG_DATA_HOME"/rlwrap
sbt	~/.sbt ~/.ivy2			$ sbt -ivy "$XDG_DATA_HOME"/ivy2 -sbt-dir "$XDG_DATA_HOME"/sbt
screen	~/.screenrc			$ export SCREENRC="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/screen/screenrc
stack	~/.stack		[75]	$ export STACK_ROOT="$XDG_DATA_HOME"/stack
subversion	~/.subversion		[76] [77][78]	$ svn --config-dir "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/subversion
task	~/.task ~/.taskrc			$ export TASKDATA="$XDG_DATA_HOME"/task $ export TASKRC="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/task/taskrc
tig	~/.tigrc			$ export TIGRC_USER="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/tig/tigrc
tiptop	~/.tiptoprc			This will still expect the .tiptoprc file. $ tiptop -W "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/tiptop
tmux	~/.tmux.conf		[79] [80]	$ tmux -f "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/tmux/tmux.conf $ export TMUX_TMPDIR="$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR"
uncrustify	~/.uncrustify.cfg			$ export UNCRUSTIFY_CONFIG="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/uncrustify/uncrustify.cfg
Unison	~/.unison			$ export UNISON="$XDG_DATA_HOME"/unison
urxvtd	~/.urxvt/urxvtd-hostname			$ export RXVT_SOCKET="$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR"/urxvtd
WeeChat	~/.weechat		[81]	$ export WEECHAT_HOME="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/weechat $ weechat -d "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/weechat
wget	~/.wgetrc			$ export WGETRC="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/wgetrc"
wine	~/.wine		[82]	Winetricks uses XDG-alike location below for WINEPREFIX management: $ mkdir -p "$XDG_DATA_HOME"/wineprefixes $ export WINEPREFIX="$XDG_DATA_HOME"/wineprefixes/default
xorg-xauth	~/.Xauthority			$ export XAUTHORITY="$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR"/Xauthority
xorg-xinit	~/.xinitrc ~/.xserverrc			$ export XINITRC="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/X11/xinitrc $ export XSERVERRC="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/X11/xserverrc Note that these variables are respected by xinit, but not by startx.
xorg-xrdb	~/.Xresources ~/.Xdefaults			Ultimately you should be using Xresources and since these resources are loaded via xrdb you can specify a path such as $ xrdb -load ~/.config/X11/xresources.
xsel	~/.xsel.log		[83]	$ xsel --logfile "$XDG_CACHE_HOME"/xsel/xsel.log

Hardcoded

Application	Legacy Path	Discussion	Notes
adb	~/.android
AMule	~/.aMule
Android Studio	~/.AndroidStudio2.3 ~/.android ~/.java
anthy	~/.anthy	[84]
Apache Directory Studio	~/.ApacheDirectoryStudio
Audacity	~/.audacity-data
Avidemux	~/.avidemux6
bash	~/.bashrc ~/.bash_history ~/.bash_profile ~/.bash_login ~/.bash_logout	[85]won't	A specified bashrc can be sourced from /etc/bashrc $ export HISTFILE="$XDG_DATA_HOME"/bash/history
bazaar	~/.bazaar ~/.bzr.log
cabal	~/.cabal	[86]	See discussion for potential workarounds. It is not very easy or straightforward but may be possible to emulate Base Directory compliance.
calibre	~/Calibre Library
CUPS	~/.cups	[87]won't
darcs	~/.darcs	[88]
dbus	~/.dbus	[89]	This should be avoidable with kdbus [citation needed].
Dia	~/.dia
eclipse	~/.eclipse	[90]	Option -Dosgi.configuration.area=@user.home/.config/.. overrides but must be added to "$ECLIPSE_HOME"/eclipse.ini" rather than command line which means you must have write access to $ECLIPSE_HOME. (Arch Linux hard-codes $ECLIPSE_HOME in /usr/bin/eclipse)
emacs	~/.emacs ~/.emacs.d	[91]	It's possible to set HOME, but it has unexpected side effects. So far the most promising approach is modifying another Emacs environment variable to alter the load path and author your own site file which can manually load up your init file, but it changes the load process significantly.
Fetchmail	~/.fetchmailrc
Firefox	~/.mozilla	[92]
GHC	~/.ghc	[93]
GNU parallel	~/.parallel
gtk-recordMyDesktop	~/.gtk-recordmydesktop
idris	~/.idris	[94]
julia	~/.juliarc.jl ~/.julia_history	[95] [96]
Linux PAM	~/.pam_environment		Hardcoded in modules/pam_env/pam_env.c
lldb	~/.lldb ~/.lldbinit
mathomatic	~/.mathomaticrc ~/.matho_history		History can be moved by using rlwrap mathomatic -r with the RLWRAP_HOME environment set appropriately.
milkytracker	~/.milkytracker_config	[97]
Minecraft	~/.minecraft	[98]
mongodb	~/.mongorc.js ~/.dbshell	[99]	This Stack Overflow thread suggests a partial workaround using command-line switch --norc.
	~/.netrc		Like ~/.ssh, many programs expect this file to be here. These include projects like curl (CURLOPT_NETRC_FILE), ftp (NETRC), s-nail (NETRC), etc. While some of them offer alternative configurable locations, many do not such as w3m, wget and lftp.
NSS	~/.pki	[100]
OpenSSH	~/.ssh	[101]	Assumed to be present by many ssh daemons and clients such as DropBear and OpenSSH.
palemoon	~/.moonchild productions	[102]
perf	~/.debug		Hardcoded in tools/perf/util/config.c:18.
various shells and display managers	~/.profile
python	~/.python_history		All history from interactive sessions is saved to ~/.python_history by default since version 3.4, custom path can still be set the same way as in older versions (see this example).
Qt Designer	~/.designer
quodlibet	~/.quodlibet
racket	~/.racketrc
RedNotebook	~/.rednotebook
Remarkable	~/.remarkable
Scribus	~/.scribus
SeaMonkey	~/.mozilla	[103]
Skype < 5.0	~/.Skype	[104]
Solfege	~/.solfege ~/.solfegerc ~/lessonfiles	[105]
SpamAssassin	~/.spamassassin
spectrwm	~/.spectrwm
SQLite	~/.sqlite_history ~/.sqliterc	[106][107]	$ sqlite3 -init "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/sqlite3/sqliterc
Steam	~/.steam
TeamSpeak	~/.ts3client
TeXmacs	~/.TeXmacs
Thunderbird	~/.thunderbird	[108]
tllocalmgr	~/.texlive
vim	~/.vim ~/.vimrc ~/.viminfo		Since 7.3.1178 vim will search for ~/.vim/vimrc if ~/.vimrc is not found. $ mkdir -p "$XDG_CACHE_HOME"/vim/{undo,swap,backup} "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/vim/vimrc set undodir=$XDG_CACHE_HOME/vim/undo set directory=$XDG_CACHE_HOME/vim/swap set backupdir=$XDG_CACHE_HOME/vim/backup set viminfo+='1000,n$XDG_CACHE_HOME/vim/viminfo set runtimepath=$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/vim,$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/vim/after,$VIMRUNTIME ~/.profile export VIMINIT=":source $XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/vim/vimrc https://tlvince.com/vim-respect-xdg
vimperator	~/.vimperatorrc	[109]	$ export VIMPERATOR_INIT=":source $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/vimperator/vimperatorrc" $ export VIMPERATOR_RUNTIME="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/vimperator
wpa_cli	~/.wpa_cli_history
xdg-utils	~/.gnome		For some reason the script xdg-desktop-menu hard-codes gnome_user_dir="$HOME/.gnome/apps". This is used by chromium amoung others.
xombrero	~/.xombrero	[110]
zsh	~/.zshrc ~/.zprofile ~/.zshenv ~/.zlogin ~/.zlogout ~/.histfile	[111]	Consider exporting ZDOTDIR=$HOME/.config/zsh in ~/.zshenv (this is hardcoded due to the bootstrap problem). You could also add this to /etc/zsh/zshenv and avoid the need for any dotfiles in your HOME. Doing this however requires root privilege which may not be viable and is system-wide. $ export HISTFILE="$XDG_DATA_HOME"/zsh/history

Library and language support

C

C99: Cloudef's simple implementation.

Haskell

Officially in directory since 1.2.3.0 ab9d0810ce.

xdg-basedir

Perl

File-BaseDir

perl-file-xdg

Python

pyxdg

Vala

Builtin support via GLib.Environment.

See get_user_cache_dir, get_user_data_dir, get_user_config_dir, etc.

See also

• GNOME Goal: XDG Base Directory Specification Usage
• Rob Pike: "Dotfiles" being hidden is a UNIXv2 mistake.
• systemd-path(1)
• file-hierarchy(7)
• Grawity's notes on dotfiles.
• Grawity's notes on environment variables.
• ploum.net: Modify Your Application to use XDG Folders.