[Pythonmac-SIG] Re: Where to put data (original) (raw)

Russell E. Owen rowen at cesmail.net
Tue Dec 21 21:17:37 CET 2004

In article <3479352C-5364-11D9-9C37-000D933C27EA at conncoll.edu>, Charles Hartman <charles.hartman at conncoll.edu> wrote:

...a file of data...which will grow and change as the app is used; when the app terminates the data ought to be saved with it for next time. In this case I don't want users fiddling with it apart from the app.

What is the right way to do this? (What's the easy way?) Is there a simple method that will work for both Mac and Windows (and Linux)?

I suggest you download the RO package <http://www.astro.washington.edu/rowen/ROPython.html> and look at RO.OS.getPrefsDir: Return the user's preferences directory, if found, else None.

For MacOS X this is often:
    ~/Library/Preferences (with ~ expanded)
For Mac Classic this is often:
    System Folder:Preferences
For unix this is the user's home directory.
For Windows this is often:
    Windows\Application Support

and RO.OS.getAppSuppDirs: Return one or more application support paths (starting with user and going to more widely shared), or [] if none found.

For MacOS X this may be:
    [~/Library/Application Support, /Library/Application Support]
For Mac Classic this is probably [] but I'm not sure.
for unix and Windows this is [getPrefsDir()]

That may help you locate the file, but does not answer how to keep users from fiddling around with it. It'll be a bit buried on Mac and Unix, but all-too-visible on unix unless you pre-pend a "." to the name.

-- Russell

More information about the Pythonmac-SIG mailing list