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What directory should your app use for storing user data? If running on macOS, youshould use:

~/Library/Application Support/<AppName>

If on Windows (at least English Win XP) that should be:

C:\Documents and Settings\<User>\Application Data\Local Settings\<AppAuthor>\<AppName>

or possibly:

C:\Documents and Settings\<User>\Application Data\<AppAuthor>\<AppName>

forroaming profiles but that is another story.

On Linux (and other Unices) the dir, according to theXDGspec, is:

~/.local/share/<AppName>

This kind of thing is what theappdirs module is for.appdirs willhelp you choose an appropriate:

• user data dir (user_data_dir)
• user config dir (user_config_dir)
• user cache dir (user_cache_dir)
• site data dir (site_data_dir)
• site config dir (site_config_dir)
• user log dir (user_log_dir)

and also:

• is a single module so other Python packages can include their own private copy
• is slightly opinionated on the directory names used. Look for "OPINION" indocumentation and code for when an opinion is being applied.

On macOS:

>>> from appdirs import *>>> appname = "SuperApp">>> appauthor = "Acme">>> user_data_dir(appname, appauthor)'/Users/trentm/Library/Application Support/SuperApp'>>> site_data_dir(appname, appauthor)'/Library/Application Support/SuperApp'>>> user_cache_dir(appname, appauthor)'/Users/trentm/Library/Caches/SuperApp'>>> user_log_dir(appname, appauthor)'/Users/trentm/Library/Logs/SuperApp'

On Windows 7:

>>> from appdirs import *>>> appname = "SuperApp">>> appauthor = "Acme">>> user_data_dir(appname, appauthor)'C:\\Users\\trentm\\AppData\\Local\\Acme\\SuperApp'>>> user_data_dir(appname, appauthor, roaming=True)'C:\\Users\\trentm\\AppData\\Roaming\\Acme\\SuperApp'>>> user_cache_dir(appname, appauthor)'C:\\Users\\trentm\\AppData\\Local\\Acme\\SuperApp\\Cache'>>> user_log_dir(appname, appauthor)'C:\\Users\\trentm\\AppData\\Local\\Acme\\SuperApp\\Logs'

On Linux:

>>> from appdirs import *>>> appname = "SuperApp">>> appauthor = "Acme">>> user_data_dir(appname, appauthor)'/home/trentm/.local/share/SuperApp>>> site_data_dir(appname, appauthor)'/usr/local/share/SuperApp'>>> site_data_dir(appname, appauthor, multipath=True)'/usr/local/share/SuperApp:/usr/share/SuperApp'>>> user_cache_dir(appname, appauthor)'/home/trentm/.cache/SuperApp'>>> user_log_dir(appname, appauthor)'/home/trentm/.cache/SuperApp/log'>>> user_config_dir(appname)'/home/trentm/.config/SuperApp'>>> site_config_dir(appname)'/etc/xdg/SuperApp'>>> os.environ['XDG_CONFIG_DIRS'] = '/etc:/usr/local/etc'>>> site_config_dir(appname, multipath=True)'/etc/SuperApp:/usr/local/etc/SuperApp'

>>> from appdirs import AppDirs>>> dirs = AppDirs("SuperApp", "Acme")>>> dirs.user_data_dir'/Users/trentm/Library/Application Support/SuperApp'>>> dirs.site_data_dir'/Library/Application Support/SuperApp'>>> dirs.user_cache_dir'/Users/trentm/Library/Caches/SuperApp'>>> dirs.user_log_dir'/Users/trentm/Library/Logs/SuperApp'

If you have multiple versions of your app in use that you want to beable to run side-by-side, then you may want version-isolation for thesedirs:

>>> from appdirs import AppDirs>>> dirs = AppDirs("SuperApp", "Acme", version="1.0")>>> dirs.user_data_dir'/Users/trentm/Library/Application Support/SuperApp/1.0'>>> dirs.site_data_dir'/Library/Application Support/SuperApp/1.0'>>> dirs.user_cache_dir'/Users/trentm/Library/Caches/SuperApp/1.0'>>> dirs.user_log_dir'/Users/trentm/Library/Logs/SuperApp/1.0'