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directories

Introduction

The library provides the location of these directories by leveraging the mechanisms defined by

Platforms

This library is written in Rust, and supports Linux, Redox, macOS and Windows. Other platforms are also supported; they use the Linux conventions.

dirs, the low-level sister library, is available at dirs-rs.

A version of this library running on the JVM is provided by directories-jvm.

Usage

Dependency

Add the library as a dependency to your project by inserting

directories = "5.0"

into the [dependencies] section of your Cargo.toml file.

If you are upgrading from version 2, please read the section on breaking changes first.

Example

Library run by user Alice:

extern crate directories;
use directories::{BaseDirs, UserDirs, ProjectDirs};

if let Some(proj_dirs) = ProjectDirs::from("com", "Foo Corp",  "Bar App") {
    proj_dirs.config_dir();
    // Lin: /home/alice/.config/barapp
    // Win: C:\Users\Alice\AppData\Roaming\Foo Corp\Bar App\config
    // Mac: /Users/Alice/Library/Application Support/com.Foo-Corp.Bar-App
}

if let Some(base_dirs) = BaseDirs::new() {
    base_dirs.executable_dir();
    // Lin: Some(/home/alice/.local/bin)
    // Win: None
    // Mac: None
}

if let Some(user_dirs) = UserDirs::new() {
    user_dirs.audio_dir();
    // Lin: /home/alice/Music
    // Win: C:\Users\Alice\Music
    // Mac: /Users/Alice/Music
}

Design Goals

Features

BaseDirs

The intended use case for BaseDirs is to query the paths of user-invisible standard directories that have been defined according to the conventions of the operating system the library is running on.

If you want to compute the location of cache, config or data directories for your own application or project, use ProjectDirs instead.

Function nameValue on LinuxValue on WindowsValue on macOS
home_dir$HOME{FOLDERID_Profile}$HOME
cache_dir$XDG_CACHE_HOME or $HOME/.cache{FOLDERID_LocalAppData}$HOME/Library/Caches
config_dir$XDG_CONFIG_HOME or $HOME/.config{FOLDERID_RoamingAppData}$HOME/Library/Application Support
config_local_dir$XDG_CONFIG_HOME or $HOME/.config{FOLDERID_LocalAppData}$HOME/Library/Application Support
data_dir$XDG_DATA_HOME or $HOME/.local/share{FOLDERID_RoamingAppData}$HOME/Library/Application Support
data_local_dir$XDG_DATA_HOME or $HOME/.local/share{FOLDERID_LocalAppData}$HOME/Library/Application Support
executable_dirSome($XDG_BIN_HOME) or Some($HOME/.local/bin)NoneNone
preference_dir$XDG_CONFIG_HOME or $HOME/.config{FOLDERID_RoamingAppData}$HOME/Library/Preferences
runtime_dirSome($XDG_RUNTIME_DIR) or NoneNoneNone
state_dirSome($XDG_STATE_HOME) or Some($HOME/.local/state)NoneNone

UserDirs

The intended use case for UserDirs is to query the paths of user-facing standard directories that have been defined according to the conventions of the operating system the library is running on.

Function nameValue on LinuxValue on WindowsValue on macOS
home_dir$HOME{FOLDERID_Profile}$HOME
audio_dirSome(XDG_MUSIC_DIR) or NoneSome({FOLDERID_Music})Some($HOME/Music/)
desktop_dirSome(XDG_DESKTOP_DIR) or NoneSome({FOLDERID_Desktop})Some($HOME/Desktop/)
document_dirSome(XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR) or NoneSome({FOLDERID_Documents})Some($HOME/Documents/)
download_dirSome(XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR) or NoneSome({FOLDERID_Downloads})Some($HOME/Downloads/)
font_dirSome($XDG_DATA_HOME/fonts/) or Some($HOME/.local/share/fonts/)NoneSome($HOME/Library/Fonts/)
picture_dirSome(XDG_PICTURES_DIR) or NoneSome({FOLDERID_Pictures})Some($HOME/Pictures/)
public_dirSome(XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR) or NoneSome({FOLDERID_Public})Some($HOME/Public/)
template_dirSome(XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR) or NoneSome({FOLDERID_Templates})None
video_dirSome(XDG_VIDEOS_DIR) or NoneSome({FOLDERID_Videos})Some($HOME/Movies/)

ProjectDirs

The intended use case for ProjectDirs is to compute the location of cache, config or data directories for your own application or project, which are derived from the standard directories.

Function nameValue on LinuxValue on WindowsValue on macOS
cache_dir$XDG_CACHE_HOME/<project_path> or $HOME/.cache/<project_path>{FOLDERID_LocalAppData}/<project_path>/cache$HOME/Library/Caches/<project_path>
config_dir$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/<project_path> or $HOME/.config/<project_path>{FOLDERID_RoamingAppData}/<project_path>/config$HOME/Library/Application Support/<project_path>
config_local_dir$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/<project_path> or $HOME/.config/<project_path>{FOLDERID_LocalAppData}/<project_path>/config$HOME/Library/Application Support/<project_path>
data_dir$XDG_DATA_HOME/<project_path> or $HOME/.local/share/<project_path>{FOLDERID_RoamingAppData}/<project_path>/data$HOME/Library/Application Support/<project_path>
data_local_dir$XDG_DATA_HOME/<project_path> or $HOME/.local/share/<project_path>{FOLDERID_LocalAppData}/<project_path>/data$HOME/Library/Application Support/<project_path>
preference_dir$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/<project_path> or $HOME/.config/<project_path>{FOLDERID_RoamingAppData}/<project_path>/config$HOME/Library/Preferences/<project_path>
runtime_dirSome($XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/<project_path>)NoneNone
state_dirSome($XDG_STATE_HOME/<project_path>) or $HOME/.local/state/<project_path>NoneNone

The specific value of <project_path> is computed by the

ProjectDirs::from(qualifier: &str,
                  organization: &str,
                  application: &str)

function and varies across operating systems. As an example, calling

ProjectDirs::from("org"         /*qualifier*/,
                  "Baz Corp"    /*organization*/,
                  "Foo Bar-App" /*application*/)

results in the following values:

Value on LinuxValue on WindowsValue on macOS
"foobar-app""Baz Corp/Foo Bar-App""org.Baz-Corp.Foo-Bar-App"

The ProjectDirs::from_path function allows the creation of ProjectDirs structs directly from a PathBuf value. This argument is used verbatim and is not adapted to operating system standards.

The use of ProjectDirs::from_path is strongly discouraged, as its results will not follow operating system standards on at least two of three platforms.

Comparison

There are other crates in the Rust ecosystem that try similar or related things. Here is an overview of them, combined with ratings on properties that guided the design of this crate.

Please take this table with a grain of salt: a different crate might very well be more suitable for your specific use case. (Of course my crate achieves my design goals better than other crates, which might have had different design goals.)

LibraryStatusLinMacWinBaseUserProjConv
app_dirsUnmaintainedāœ”āœ”āœ”šŸžˆāœ–āœ”āœ–
app_dirs2Maintainedāœ”āœ”āœ”šŸžˆāœ–āœ”āœ–
dirsDevelopedāœ”āœ”āœ”āœ”āœ”āœ–āœ”
directoriesDevelopedāœ”āœ”āœ”āœ”āœ”āœ”āœ”
s_app_dirUnmaintained?āœ”āœ–šŸžˆāœ–āœ–šŸžˆāœ–
standard_pathsMaintainedāœ”āœ–āœ”āœ”āœ”āœ”āœ–
xdgMaintainedāœ”āœ–āœ–āœ”āœ–āœ”šŸžˆ
xdg-basedirUnmaintained?āœ”āœ–āœ–āœ”āœ–āœ–šŸžˆ
xdg-rsObsoleteāœ”āœ–āœ–āœ”āœ–āœ–šŸžˆ

Build

It's possible to cross-compile this library if the necessary toolchains are installed with rustup. This is helpful to ensure a change has not broken compilation on a different platform.

The following commands will build this library on Linux, macOS and Windows:

cargo build --target=x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
cargo build --target=x86_64-pc-windows-gnu
cargo build --target=x86_64-apple-darwin
cargo build --target=x86_64-unknown-redox

Changelog

5

4

3

2

BREAKING CHANGE The behavior of deactivated, missing or invalid XDG User Dirs entries on Linux has been improved (contributed by @tmiasko, thank you!):

License

Licensed under either of

at your option.

Contribution

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.