Re: [dmenu] Patch for XDG Base Directory specification of dmenu_path

On 12/30/10, Anselm R Garbe <garbeam <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> On 30 December 2010 20:47, Jon Raphaelson <jonraphaelson <at> gmail.com> wrote:
>> Attached is a patch to dmenu_path which (if enabled in the config.mk)
>> changes the cache file location to be XDG Base Directory Specification
>> compliant. After enabling the change, the cache file will live at
>> $XDG_CACHE_HOME/dmenu/path.cache (or $HOME/.cache/dmenu/path.cache if
>> $XDG_CACHE_HOME is not set), rather than in the home directory at
>> ~/.dmenu_cache.
>> This patch relies on libxdg-basedir [2] being installed.
>
> I think using some pseudo-directory standard and library to retrieve
> the location of a cache file is quite odd.
>
I think storing cache files under $HOME is even odder. $HOME is quite
often accessed over a network. Storing it under /var seems saner.

Re: [dmenu] Patch for XDG Base Directory specification of dmenu_path

On Sat, Jan 01, 2011 at 06:04:45PM +0000, Bjartur Thorlacius wrote:
> On 12/30/10, Anselm R Garbe <garbeam <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 30 December 2010 20:47, Jon Raphaelson <jonraphaelson <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Attached is a patch to dmenu_path which (if enabled in the config.mk)
> >> changes the cache file location to be XDG Base Directory Specification
> >> compliant. After enabling the change, the cache file will live at
> >> $XDG_CACHE_HOME/dmenu/path.cache (or $HOME/.cache/dmenu/path.cache if
> >> $XDG_CACHE_HOME is not set), rather than in the home directory at
> >> ~/.dmenu_cache.
> >> This patch relies on libxdg-basedir [2] being installed.
> >
> > I think using some pseudo-directory standard and library to retrieve
> > the location of a cache file is quite odd.
> >
> I think storing cache files under $HOME is even odder. $HOME is quite
> often accessed over a network. Storing it under /var seems saner.

Or /tmp as it was in the earlier days.

-Anselm

Re: [dmenu] Patch for XDG Base Directory specification of dmenu_path

Anselm R Garbe <anselm <at> garbe.us> writes:
> On Sat, Jan 01, 2011 at 06:04:45PM +0000, Bjartur Thorlacius wrote:
>> I think storing cache files under $HOME is even odder. $HOME is quite
>> often accessed over a network. Storing it under /var seems saner.
>
> Or /tmp as it was in the earlier days.

/tmp is wiped on system reboot, while you might like your dmenu cache to
live a little longer than that.

--

-- 
\  Troels
/\ Henriksen

Re: [dmenu] Patch for XDG Base Directory specification of dmenu_path

On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 6:29 AM, Troels Henriksen <athas <at> sigkill.dk> wrote:
> Anselm R Garbe <anselm <at> garbe.us> writes:
>> On Sat, Jan 01, 2011 at 06:04:45PM +0000, Bjartur Thorlacius wrote:
>>> I think storing cache files under $HOME is even odder. $HOME is quite
>>> often accessed over a network. Storing it under /var seems saner.
>>
>> Or /tmp as it was in the earlier days.
>
> /tmp is wiped on system reboot, while you might like your dmenu cache to
> live a little longer than that.

1)  I go a pretty long time between reboots

2) /tmp is not always wiped on reboot -- that's distribution-specific.

--

-- 
# Kurt H Maier

Re: [dmenu] Patch for XDG Base Directory specification of dmenu_path

Excerpts from Troels Henriksen's message of Sun Jan 02 12:29:19 +0100 2011:
> /tmp is wiped on system reboot, while you might like your dmenu cache to
> live a little longer than that.

Not necessarily.  This depends on your distribution.

A few examples:
Slackware doesn't purge it by default, debian iirc has an option somewhere,
archlinux empties /tmp completely.  I'm not very certain about other
distributions, but I think most of them purge it in default configuration.

According to hier(7) one can not even rely on /tmp being kept for the whole
uptime, while /var/tmp holds "temporary files for an unspecified duration",
whatever that means in practice.  At least no distribution known to me purges
/var/tmp/ on bootup per default.  Also note that simply purging everything in
/tmp via a cronjob as proposed by hier(7) is fatal for programs placing sockets
in it (screen, tmux) and running X11 sessions.

Maybe /var/tmp/ would be a better choice than /tmp?

Best regards,

Moritz

Re: [dvtm] Graphics in madtty.c

Re: [dmenu] Patch for XDG Base Directory specification of dmenu_path

> Maybe /var/tmp/ would be a better choice than /tmp?
Or you know, /var/cache?
For sockets, /var/run, which is always wiped on boot, seems appropriate.

Re: [dmenu] Patch for XDG Base Directory specification of dmenu_path

Quoting <http://pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#VARRUNRUNTIMEVARIABLEDATA>
> System programs that maintain transient UNIX-domain sockets must place them in this directory.
I don't even know what 'transient' means, but this seems to apply to X
IPC sockets.

On 1/2/11, Bjartur Thorlacius <svartman95 <at> gmail.com> wrote:
>> Maybe /var/tmp/ would be a better choice than /tmp?
> Or you know, /var/cache?
> For sockets, /var/run, which is always wiped on boot, seems appropriate.
>

Re: [dmenu] Patch for XDG Base Directory specification of dmenu_path

Re: [dmenu] Patch for XDG Base Directory specification of dmenu_path

On Sat, Jan 01, 2011 at 06:04:45PM +0000, Bjartur Thorlacius wrote:
> On 12/30/10, Anselm R Garbe <garbeam <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 30 December 2010 20:47, Jon Raphaelson <jonraphaelson <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Attached is a patch to dmenu_path which (if enabled in the config.mk)
> >> changes the cache file location to be XDG Base Directory Specification
> >> compliant. After enabling the change, the cache file will live at
> >> $XDG_CACHE_HOME/dmenu/path.cache (or $HOME/.cache/dmenu/path.cache if
> >> $XDG_CACHE_HOME is not set), rather than in the home directory at
> >> ~/.dmenu_cache.
> >> This patch relies on libxdg-basedir [2] being installed.
> >
> > I think using some pseudo-directory standard and library to retrieve
> > the location of a cache file is quite odd.
> >
> I think storing cache files under $HOME is even odder. $HOME is quite
> often accessed over a network. Storing it under /var seems saner.
> 
dmenu cache should be stored under $HOME because different users use
different $PATH.  In my .profile I set

export XDG_CONFIG_HOME="$HOME/etc"
export XDG_CACHE_HOME="$HOME/var/cache"

In dmenu_path.c I set

#define CACHE "var/cache/dmenu"

BTW under $HOME/lib I store various databases like browser bookmarks,
calendars and other things like that.