Creating files and directories in the system in portable mode. about clink HOT 6 CLOSED

@Az-Tart Yes.

The "portable" part means you can "take the profile with you".
It doesn't mean "never write anywhere except the profile directory".

It isn't a "mode" per se, and the documentation says it's a way to have a portable profile directory. That's all it's intended for; it was never meant for Clink to be prohibited from writing to the TEMP directory.

Regarding the three directories:

• %LOCALAPPDATA%\clink -- That wasn't intentional, and commit 2f745d2 will avoid that starting in v1.6.3.
• %LOCALAPPDATA%\Temp\clink\updater -- To prevent the updater from writing to the TEMP directory, run clink set clink.autoupdate off to turn off the updater.
• %LOCALAPPDATA%\Temp\clink\dll_cache\1.6.2.864f24_aba916ad -- This belongs in the TEMP directory.

Why do you want nothing to be written in the TEMP directory?
What problem is caused by copying a DLL into the TEMP directory?
If you don't want to allow Clink to write to TEMP, then where should it write instead?

from clink.

@chrisant996 Thanks for the clarifications.
Because it is my priority that portable programs do not leave anything behind on the system. It would be nice to have temp files saved to the Clink root directory. Is it possible to do this?

from clink.

The portable.bat script makes the configuration portable.

There was never any intent to make Clink be a "portable program" in the sense you want.

I can add it to the to-do list, and maybe I can investigate the possibility at some point.

from clink.

@chrisant996 I understand you. I'm hoping for updates. Thanks.

from clink.

It would be nice to have temp files saved to the Clink root directory. Is it possible to do this?

@Az-Tart Some clarifications:

Re: "Clink root directory" --

• Neither the Clink binaries directory nor the Clink profile directory would be an ok place to write temp files.
• The only possibility would be a separate configurable location.

Re: "have temp files saved" --

• What maximum size temp files would be acceptable in the portable storage?
• What would be expected to happen for files that don't fit?
• How will temp files be purged from the portable storage? Since it wouldn't be the OS temp directory, there won't be any automatic purging. Either you would have to purge files yourself, or some kind of temp file manager would have to be created.
• Which temp files do you want diverted into the portable storage? If you want literally zero temp files in the OS temp directory, not even from Lua scripts that write temp files, and etc, then that's just impossible.

Hopefully these additional statements and questions help illustrate why the request is not simple, and isn't something Clink was trying to accomplish.

For now, I'm going to close this issue, because it isn't a planned work item. But it will be added to the todo.md file for future consideration.

from clink.

This is being removed from the wish list because:

I use multiple "portable programs", and all of them use the system TEMP directory for various things. The program and its configuration are portable, but that doesn't mean it exists in a bubble isolated from core OS services.

I won't try to build some kind of way for Clink to avoid using the TEMP directory for temporary files, especially since scripts and programs launched by Clink would still use the system TEMP directory.

I understand the request, but it's inconsistent with the purpose of the TEMP directory, and isn't feasible to the degree that was requested.

from clink.