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Path to user config/data directories

Source: R/data.R
user_data_dir.Rd

user_data_dir() returns path to the user-specific data directory and user_config_dir() returns full path to the user-specific configuration directory. These are the same on Windows and Mac but different on Linux.

These functions first use R_USER_DATA_DIR and R_USER_CONFIG_DIR if set. Otherwise, they follow platform conventions. Typical user config and data directories are:

  • Mac OS X: ~/Library/Application Support/<AppName>

  • Win XP (not roaming): C:\\Documents and Settings\\<username>\\Data\\<AppAuthor>\\<AppName>

  • Win XP (roaming): C:\\Documents and Settings\\<username>\\Local Settings\\Data\\<AppAuthor>\\<AppName>

  • Win 7 (not roaming): C:\\Users\\<username>\\AppData\\Local\\<AppAuthor>\\<AppName>

  • Win 7 (roaming): C:\\Users\\<username>\\AppData\\Roaming\\<AppAuthor>\\<AppName>

Only Linux makes the distinction between config and data:

  • Data: ~/.local/share/<AppName>

  • Config: ~/.config/<AppName>

Usage

user_data_dir(
  appname = NULL,
  appauthor = appname,
  version = NULL,
  roaming = FALSE,
  expand = TRUE,
  os = NULL
)

user_config_dir(
  appname = NULL,
  appauthor = appname,
  version = NULL,
  roaming = TRUE,
  expand = TRUE,
  os = NULL
)

Arguments

appname

is the name of application. If NULL, just the system directory is returned.

appauthor

(only required and used on Windows) is the name of the appauthor or distributing body for this application. Typically it is the owning company name. This falls back to appname.

version

is an optional version path element to append to the path. You might want to use this if you want multiple versions of your app to be able to run independently. If used, this would typically be "<major>.<minor>". Only applied when appname is not NULL.

roaming

(logical, default FALSE) can be set TRUE to use the Windows roaming appdata directory. That means that for users on a Windows network setup for roaming profiles, this user data will be sync'd on login. See <https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-vista/cc766489(v=ws.10). for a discussion of issues.

expand

If TRUE (the default) will expand the R_LIBS specifiers with their equivalents. See R_LIBS() for list of all possibly specifiers.

os

Operating system whose conventions are used to construct the requested directory. Possible values are "win", "mac", "unix". If NULL (the default) then the current OS will be used.

Examples

user_data_dir("rappdirs")
#> [1] "~/.local/share/rappdirs"

user_config_dir("rappdirs", roaming = TRUE, os = "win")
#> [1] "<APPDATA>/rappdirs/rappdirs"
user_config_dir("rappdirs", roaming = FALSE, os = "win")
#> [1] "<USERPROFILE>/Local Settings/Application Data/rappdirs/rappdirs"
user_config_dir("rappdirs", os = "unix")
#> [1] "/home/runner/.config/rappdirs"
user_config_dir("rappdirs", os = "mac")
#> [1] "~/Library/Application Support/rappdirs"
user_config_dir("rappdirs", version = "%p-platform/%v")
#> [1] "/home/runner/.config/rappdirs/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-platform/4.5"