Re: Best practice for config files?

Hello Michael,

thank you for your important question.

On GNU/Linux (and maybe for POSIX?) systems there is a standard about 
it.

     <https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/>

Look for $XDG_CONFIG_HOME.

To drive it further, you might distinguish between config data (related 
and readable to users) and state data (e.g. size, position of windows, 
...). The later is often also stored in a config file, which is not a 
good idea. For state data you should use $XDG_STATE_HOME.

If the system does not provide the environment variable use a default 
value.

See one example [1] for a config path or for a state file [2].

Feel free to ask back if you have further questions or suggestions.

Regards,
Christian Buhtz

[1] -- 
<https://github.com/buhtz/backintime/blob/3ca90c5ca8940bfff15fca2ba5d6f01fa2b88010/common/konfig.py#L1322-L1333>
[2] -- 
<https://github.com/bit-team/backintime/blob/5b4bf8d1e6bb02c35def360c9a661f4f682a9f7a/qt/statedata.py#L134-L147>