createPath might be doing to much about xdg HOT 3 CLOSED

I don't really understand your point here. Each path in the paths slice is checked in turn for existence. And the paths are sorted by their priority (home directory paths first).

If we take the xdg.DataFile function as an example. Let's say these are the searched paths:
[~/.local/share, /usr/local/share, /usr/share] (composed by XDG_DATA_HOME + XDG_DATA_DIRS)
and I want to create myapp/app.data.

In that case, createPath would first look if ~/.local/share/myapp exists. If it doesn't, it would create it and stop.
If the directories cannot be created, the next path in the paths slice is attempted and so on until it succeeds or there are no more paths.

The files should always be written in the order of the paths, even though not all of them exist. If the first one in the slice does not exist, it should be created. If that succeeds, then that's the path at which the data file should be written.

EDIT: in your example, /usr/local/share would not be created because a home directory path of the root user would be attempted first. Only if that fails, the next path is attempted. And as I mentioned, priority matters. Paths should be created in the order of the priority they are defined either in the XDG variable in question or in the order of the defaults if that variable is not set.

from xdg.

@KalleDK Can this issue be closed?

To summarize:

createPath is used by xdg.DataFile, xdg.ConfigFile, xdg.CacheFile, xdg.RuntimeFile and xdg.StateFile.
For all of them, paths are created relative to XDG_DATA_HOME, XDG_CONFIG_HOME, XDG_CACHE_HOME, XDG_RUNTIME_DIR and XDG_STATE_HOME. Defaults are used for variables which are not defined or are empty.

For xdg.DataFile and xdg.ConfigFile, in addition to XDG_DATA_HOME and XDG_CONFIG_HOME, XDG_DATA_DIRS and XDG_CONFIG_DIRS are used as fallbacks. They are used only if paths cannot be created relative to XDG_DATA_HOME and XDG_CONFIG_HOME. So that should never happen, as users should always be able to create directories inside their home directory. However, if that happens for any reason, path creation is attempted relative to the paths defined by XDG_DATA_DIRS/XDG_CONFIG_DIRS, in the order they are defined in the variable by the user/system (or in the order of the defaults if it is not defined). Realistically, fallbacks are never used.

from xdg.

Closing this issue. Please re-open if I missed anything.

from xdg.