From: "Sean O'Dell" <sean@...[REMOVE_THE_SPAM]>
Date: 2003-09-20T01:58:36+09:00
Subject: Re: File.expand_path and ~ on windows

Berger, Daniel wrote:
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Sean O'Dell [mailto:sean@cSePlsoAfMt.com[REMOVE_THE_SPAM]] 
>>Sent: Friday, September 19, 2003 10:19 AM
>>To: ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org
>>Subject: Re: File.expand_path and ~ on windows
>>
>>
>>Austin Ziegler wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On Fri, 19 Sep 2003 11:36:28 +0900, Tom Felker wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Wouldn't it make more sense to expand it to My Documents 
>>
>>(C:\Documents 
>>
>>>>and Settings\Username\My Documents on WinXP)?  I suppose it 
>>
>>would be 
>>
>>>>worthwhile to be able to disable it, though.
>>>
>>>
>>>No. ~ has no meaning to Windows shells. There are times when I wish 
>>>that it
>>>didn't to Unix shells. After all, that's what ${HOME} is for.
>>
>>This is true; but I think for portability reasons, since COMMAND.COM 
>>isn't exactly what I would call a culture of shell idioms, ~ 
>>and ${HOME} 
>>(%HOME%) should be considered synonymous.  If not ~, then at least 
>>${HOME} ought to point to C:\Documents and Settings\UserName I think.
>>
>>	Sean O'Dell
> 
> 
> FWIW, it is possible to set a HOME directory.  On XP Pro: Control Panel ->
> User Accounts -> Advanced -> Users.
> 
> Then, right click on a given user and click "properties" and click the
> "profile" tab.  There you should see a "home folder" option.  This is what
> sets the LPUSER_INFO_11 struct value for the usri11_home_dir member.
> 
> So, in theory you can get a user's home dir like this:
> 
> # Available on RAA - shameless plug
> require "sys/win32etc"
> include Sys
> 
> home = Win32Etc.getpwnam("some_user").home_dir
> 
> However, it seems that in practice this value is rarely set (it wasn't in
> any of the 3 machines that I tested) and that %HOME% should be the first
> default.

That's interesting; it's there in Win2k as well.

I would say (in agreement) that ~ should first be wherever %HOME% points 
to, then wherever the home directory is set in the registry (if it's not 
an empty/whitespace-filled string) and THEN C:\Documents and 
Settings\UserName after that.  /whew

	Sean O'Dell