Get Normalized Data Directory Path of a Program

data_dir returns the absolute, normalized path to the data directory of a program/package/app based on an optional app-specific commandline argument, an optional app-specific environment variable and the XDG Base Directory Specification

Usage

data_dir(
  app_name,
  cl_arg = commandArgs()[grep("--data-dir", commandArgs()) + 1],
  env_var = Sys.getenv(toupper(paste0(app_name, "_DATA_DIR"))),
  create = FALSE,
  sep = "/"
)

Arguments

app_name

Name of the program/package/app

cl_arg

Value of app specific commandline parameter

env_var

Value of app specific environment variable

create

whether to create returned path, if it doesn't exists yet

sep

Path separator to be used on Windows

Value

Normalized path to the data directory of $app_name.

Details

The following algorithm is used to determine the location of the data directory for application $app_name:

1. If parameter $cl_arg is a non-empty string, return cl_arg

2. Else, if parameter $env_var is a non-empty string, return $env_var

3. Else, if environment variable (EV) $XDG_DATA_HOME exists, return $XDG_DATA_HOME/$app_name

4. Else, if EV $HOME exists, return $HOME/.local/share/$app_name

5. Else, if EV $USERPROFILE exists, return $USERPROFILE/.local/share/$app_name

6. Else, return $WD/.local/share

See also

config_dir(), xdg_data_home()

Examples

data_dir("myApp")
#> [1] "/home/runner/.local/share/myApp"