Re: bash support for XDG Base Directory spec (~/.config/bash/)

[Chet Ramey]

On 11/2/21 9:53 AM, Siteshwar Vashisht wrote:
> On Fri, May 7, 2021 at 11:48 AM Allison Karlitskaya <
> allison.karlitskaya@redhat.com> wrote:
> 
>> hello,
>>
>> Please consider these two patches for inclusion in bash to support
>> storing shell initialisation files (profile, bashrc) in a subdirectory
>> of ~/.config/ as most programs do these days.
>>
>> I'm happy to make changes to address any feedback.
>>
>> Even if you'd prefer not to apply the second patch, applying the first
>> patch is a nice cleanup and would make it easier for distributions
>> such as Fedora to apply the second patch for themselves.
>>
>> Thank you very much for your consideration,
>>
> 
> This issue is also discussed in Red Hat bug[1]. I will leave few notes
> about it here.

        [...]

> Proposed patch doesn't fully implement this specification:

OK. So we have an incomplete patch for a novel piece of functionality (in
the sense that no other shell implements it). That's going to impose an
implementation and maintenance cost that is better spent elsewhere -- at
least to this point.

The OP assumes that the value of this functionality is self-evident. I'm
a little more skeptical. How does it help make things easier for users?
How does it aid portability? Is it demonstrably better than the current
scheme, which has been in place for many years and is settled and well-
understood?

I'm not seeing a large number of reports about this (before this, the
last report was in 2016).

If someone wants to keep their config files in ~/.config/bash, what is
wrong with using symlinks from ~/.bash_profile and ~/.bashrc to those
files?

Chet

-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
                 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/