[boost] [filesystem] home_directory_path

Subject: [boost] [filesystem] home_directory_path
From: Jeff Flinn (TriumphSprint2000_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-10-18 10:58:31

In looking at implementing a portable home_directory_path function a few 
questions arise.

Based on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_directory, POSIX and other 
UNIX flavors 'appear' to be a straight forward use of the "HOME" 
environment variable. Does anyone have any experience where the "HOME" 
variable is not the proper source of the user's home directory?

Windows NT and above have the "USERPROFILE" environment variable. Using 
this would be the easiest to use. But I've seen discussion that this may 
not always be properly defined, in particular if the user has reset 
their home directory to a non-system drive. I haven't tracked down it's 
availability on WinCE. Does anyone have experience with this platform?

There is the windows GetUserProfileDirectory api function also available 
since NT4. This is in the Userenv.lib/dll, obviously adding a link 
dependancy. How are these sorts of system link dependencies handled? 
Through bjam? Or is it acceptable/better to use #pragma 
comment(lib,"Userenv.lib")?

In looking at some client code using home_directory_path, I see that 
they generally are looking for the user's Desktop directory(Mac & 
Windows). Obviously this only makes sense on GUI platforms. The issue 
with merely getting this path via home_directory_path() / "Desktop" is 
IIRC, that at least on windows "Desktop" is localized and may not exist 
with that name on non-english localized systems. Windows has the 
SHGetFolderPath api. I need to look into Mac's native support. Any 
thoughts on the general usefulness of a portable desktop_directory_path?

Thanks, Jeff