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

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

SYNOPSIS
	 use File::HomeDir;

	 # Modern Interface (Current User)
	 $home	   = File::HomeDir->my_home;
	 $desktop  = File::HomeDir->my_desktop;
	 $docs	   = File::HomeDir->my_documents;
	 $music	   = File::HomeDir->my_music;
	 $pics	   = File::HomeDir->my_pictures;
	 $videos   = File::HomeDir->my_videos;
	 $data	   = File::HomeDir->my_data;
	 $dist	   = File::HomeDir->my_dist_data('File-HomeDir');
	 $dist	   = File::HomeDir->my_dist_config('File-HomeDir');

	 # Modern Interface (Other Users)
	 $home	  = File::HomeDir->users_home('foo');
	 $desktop = File::HomeDir->users_desktop('foo');
	 $docs	  = File::HomeDir->users_documents('foo');
	 $music	  = File::HomeDir->users_music('foo');
	 $pics	  = File::HomeDir->users_pictures('foo');
	 $video	  = File::HomeDir->users_videos('foo');
	 $data	  = File::HomeDir->users_data('foo');

DESCRIPTION
       File::HomeDir is a module for locating the directories that are "owned"
       by a user (typicaly your user) and to solve the various issues that
       arise trying to find them consistently across a wide variety of
       platforms.

       The end result is a single API that can find your resources on any
       platform, making it relatively trivial to create Perl software that
       works elegantly and correctly no matter where you run it.

       This module provides two main interfaces.

       The first is a modern File::Spec-style interface with a consistent OO
       API and different implementation modules to support various platforms.
       You are strongly recommended to use this interface.

       The second interface is for legacy support of the original 0.07
       interface that exported a "home()" function by default and tied the
       "%~" variable.

       It is generally not recommended that you use this interface, but due to
       back-compatibility reasons they will remain supported until at least
       2010.

       The "%~" interface has been deprecated. Documentation was removed in
       2009, Unit test were removed in 2011, usage will issue warnings from
       2013, and the interface will be removed entirely in 2015	 (in line with
       the general Perl toolchain convention of a 10 year support period for
       legacy APIs that are potentially or actually in common use).

   Platform Neutrality
       In the Unix world, many different types of data can be mixed together
       in your home directory (although on some Unix platforms this is no
       longer the case, particularly for "desktop"-oriented platforms).

       On some non-Unix platforms, separate directories are allocated for
       different types of data and have been for a long time.

       When writing applications on top of File::HomeDir, you should thus
       always try to use the most specific method you can. User documents
       should be saved in "my_documents", data that supports an application
       but isn't normally editing by the user directory should go into
       "my_data".

       On platforms that do not make any distinction, all these different
       methods will harmlessly degrade to the main home directory, but on
       platforms that care File::HomeDir will always try to Do The Right
       Thing(tm).

METHODS
       Two types of methods are provided. The "my_method" series of methods
       for finding resources for the current user, and the "users_method"
       (read as "user's method") series for finding resources for arbitrary
       users.

       This split is necessary, as on most platforms it is much easier to find
       information about the current user compared to other users, and indeed
       on a number you cannot find out information such as "users_desktop" at
       all, due to security restrictions.

       All methods will double check (using a "-d" test) that a directory
       actually exists before returning it, so you may trust in the values
       that are returned (subject to the usual caveats of race conditions of
       directories being deleted at the moment between a directory being
       returned and you using it).

       However, because in some cases platforms may not support the concept of
       home directories at all, any method may return "undef" (both in scalar
       and list context) to indicate that there is no matching directory on
       the system.

       For example, most untrusted 'nobody'-type users do not have a home
       directory. So any modules that are used in a CGI application that at
       some level of recursion use your code, will result in calls to
       File::HomeDir returning undef, even for a basic home() call.

   my_home
       The "my_home" method takes no arguments and returns the main
       home/profile directory for the current user.

       If the distinction is important to you, the term "current" refers to
       the real user, and not the effective user.

       This is also the case for all of the other "my" methods.

       Returns the directory path as a string, "undef" if the current user
       does not have a home directory, or dies on error.

   my_desktop
       The "my_desktop" method takes no arguments and returns the "desktop"
       directory for the current user.

       Due to the diversity and complexity of implementions required to deal
       with implementing the required functionality fully and completely, the
       "my_desktop" method may or may not be implemented on each platform.

       That said, I am extremely interested in code to implement "my_desktop"
       on Unix, as long as it is capable of dealing (as the Windows
       implementation does) with internationalisation. It should also avoid
       false positive results by making sure it only returns the appropriate
       directories for the appropriate platforms.

       Returns the directory path as a string, "undef" if the current user
       does not have a desktop directory, or dies on error.

   my_documents
       The "my_documents" method takes no arguments and returns the directory
       (for the current user) where the user's documents are stored.

       Returns the directory path as a string, "undef" if the current user
       does not have a documents directory, or dies on error.

   my_music
       The "my_music" method takes no arguments and returns the directory
       where the current user's music is stored.

       No bias is made to any particular music type or music program, rather
       the concept of a directory to hold the user's music is made at the
       level of the underlying operating system or (at least) desktop
       environment.

       Returns the directory path as a string, "undef" if the current user
       does not have a suitable directory, or dies on error.

   my_pictures
       The "my_pictures" method takes no arguments and returns the directory
       where the current user's pictures are stored.

       No bias is made to any particular picture type or picture program,
       rather the concept of a directory to hold the user's pictures is made
       at the level of the underlying operating system or (at least) desktop
       environment.

       Returns the directory path as a string, "undef" if the current user
       does not have a suitable directory, or dies on error.

   my_videos
       The "my_videos" method takes no arguments and returns the directory
       where the current user's videos are stored.

       No bias is made to any particular video type or video program, rather
       the concept of a directory to hold the user's videos is made at the
       level of the underlying operating system or (at least) desktop
       environment.

       Returns the directory path as a string, "undef" if the current user
       does not have a suitable directory, or dies on error.

   my_data
       The "my_data" method takes no arguments and returns the directory where
       local applications should stored their internal data for the current
       user.

       Generally an application would create a subdirectory such as ".foo",
       beneath this directory, and store its data there. By creating your
       directory this way, you get an accurate result on the maximum number of
       platforms. But see the documentation about "my_dist_config()" or
       "my_dist_data()" below.

       For example, on Unix you get "~/.foo" and on Win32 you get "~/Local
       Settings/Application Data/.foo"

       Returns the directory path as a string, "undef" if the current user
       does not have a data directory, or dies on error.

   my_dist_config
	 File::HomeDir->my_dist_config( $dist [, \%params] );

	 # For example...

	 File::HomeDir->my_dist_config( 'File-HomeDir' );
	 File::HomeDir->my_dist_config( 'File-HomeDir', { create => 1 } );

       The "my_dist_config" method takes a distribution name as argument and
       returns an application-specific directory where they should store their
       internal configuration.

       The base directory will be either "my_config" if the platform supports
       it, or "my_documents" otherwise. The subdirectory itself will be
       "BASE/Perl/Dist-Name". If the base directory is the user's homedir,
       "my_dist_config" will be in "~/.perl/Dist-Name" (and thus be hidden on
       all Unixes).

       The optional last argument is a hash reference to tweak the method
       behaviour. The following hash keys are recognized:

       ·   create

	   Passing a true value to this key will force the creation of the
	   directory if it doesn't exist (remember that "File::HomeDir"'s
	   policy is to return "undef" if the directory doesn't exist).

	   Defaults to false, meaning no automatic creation of directory.

   my_dist_data
	 File::HomeDir->my_dist_data( $dist [, \%params] );

	 # For example...

	 File::HomeDir->my_dist_data( 'File-HomeDir' );
	 File::HomeDir->my_dist_data( 'File-HomeDir', { create => 1 } );

       The "my_dist_data" method takes a distribution name as argument and
       returns an application-specific directory where they should store their
       internal data.

       This directory will be of course a subdirectory of "my_data". Platforms
       supporting data-specific directories will use
       "DATA_DIR/perl/dist/Dist-Name" following the common
       "DATA/vendor/application" pattern. If the "my_data" directory is the
       user's homedir, "my_dist_data" will be in "~/.perl/dist/Dist-Name" (and
       thus be hidden on all Unixes).

       The optional last argument is a hash reference to tweak the method
       behaviour. The following hash keys are recognized:

       ·   create

	   Passing a true value to this key will force the creation of the
	   directory if it doesn't exist (remember that "File::HomeDir"'s
	   policy is to return "undef" if the directory doesn't exist).

	   Defaults to false, meaning no automatic creation of directory.

   users_home
	 $home = File::HomeDir->users_home('foo');

       The "users_home" method takes a single param and is used to locate the
       parent home/profile directory for an identified user on the system.

       While most of the time this identifier would be some form of user name,
       it is permitted to vary per-platform to support user ids or UUIDs as
       applicable for that platform.

       Returns the directory path as a string, "undef" if that user does not
       have a home directory, or dies on error.

   users_documents
	 $docs = File::HomeDir->users_documents('foo');

       Returns the directory path as a string, "undef" if that user does not
       have a documents directory, or dies on error.

   users_data
	 $data = File::HomeDir->users_data('foo');

       Returns the directory path as a string, "undef" if that user does not
       have a data directory, or dies on error.

FUNCTIONS
   home
	 use File::HomeDir;
	 $home = home();
	 $home = home('foo');
	 $home = File::HomeDir::home();
	 $home = File::HomeDir::home('foo');

       The "home" function is exported by default and is provided for
       compatibility with legacy applications. In new applications, you should
       use the newer method-based interface above.

       Returns the directory path to a named user's home/profile directory.

       If provided no param, returns the directory path to the current user's
       home/profile directory.

TO DO
       ·   Become generally clearer on situations in which a user might not
	   have a particular resource.

       ·   Add more granularity to Unix, and add support to VMS and other
	   esoteric platforms, so we can consider going core.

       ·   Add consistent support for users_* methods

SUPPORT
       This module is stored in an Open Repository at the following address.

       http://svn.ali.as/cpan/trunk/File-HomeDir
       <http://svn.ali.as/cpan/trunk/File-HomeDir>

       Write access to the repository is made available automatically to any
       published CPAN author, and to most other volunteers on request.

       If you are able to submit your bug report in the form of new (failing)
       unit tests, or can apply your fix directly instead of submitting a
       patch, you are strongly encouraged to do so as the author currently
       maintains over 100 modules and it can take some time to deal with non-
       Critical bug reports or patches.

       This will guarantee that your issue will be addressed in the next
       release of the module.

       If you cannot provide a direct test or fix, or don't have time to do
       so, then regular bug reports are still accepted and appreciated via the
       CPAN bug tracker.

       http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=File-HomeDir
       <http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=File-HomeDir>

       For other issues, for commercial enhancement or support, or to have
       your write access enabled for the repository, contact the author at the
       email address above.

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

AUTHORS
       Adam Kennedy <adamk@cpan.org>

       Sean M. Burke <sburke@cpan.org>

       Chris Nandor <cnandor@cpan.org>

       Stephen Steneker <stennie@cpan.org>

SEE ALSO
       File::ShareDir, File::HomeDir::Win32 (legacy)

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright 2005 - 2012 Adam Kennedy.

       Some parts copyright 2000 Sean M. Burke.

       Some parts copyright 2006 Chris Nandor.

       Some parts copyright 2006 Stephen Steneker.

       Some parts copyright 2009-2011 Jerome Quelin.

       This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
       under the same terms as Perl itself.

       The full text of the license can be found in the LICENSE file included
       with this module.

POD ERRORS
       Hey! The above document had some coding errors, which are explained
       below:

       Around line 715:
	   Non-ASCII character seen before =encoding in 'Jerome'. Assuming
	   UTF-8

perl v5.14.2			  2012-01-25		      File::HomeDir(3)
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