Simple, cross-platform to get well-known desktop paths in Java?

Question

I'm looking for a simple, cross-platform way, on the JVM, to get the appropriate directories for storing application settings and cache data. E.g., on Linux under the XDG specs:

• config in ~/.config/appname
• cache in ~/.cache/appname

Windows stuff goes in C\Users\user\Application Data or some such (on Win 7); I gather that Mac puts stuff under ~/Library/Application Settings.

Is there a cross-platform call to get these path locations? I haven't been able to find one, though I find several questions asking about it. Is there some library that has implemented the correct logic for most common desktop platforms?

Worst case, I can just look up user.home and pretend everything is an XDG-based Linux environment. But if it's easy to get the right directories for the user's OS, I'd like to do so.

Answer 1

The FileSystemView class is the only one I know that contains access to some general directories like this, and is cross-platform. Refer to the documentation here

This class contains some method that might be helpful, such as getHomeDirectory() and getDefaultDirectory(). This class is used by the JFileChooser for Swing interfaces. I know it doesn't directly point to the config and cache directories, but it might be a step in the right direction for you.

For my own apps, I take the next-best approach by trying to make all the config and settings contained within the application itself - ie. create a "config" directory under the directory where the application is installed. Even though its not a central location for config for the whole OS, at least it keeps it within the java application context.

Answer 2

We basically set up a utility class that provides this information, mostly based on the user.home and os.name system property.

We have a series of methods that allow us to build up a path location, something like...

SystemUtilities.getApplicationSettingsPath("Name of my awesome app");