Add log directories for applications

[ValentinTrinque]

What about adding log directories to this library ?

Despite not being in the XDG specification, that could be nice to have something about this in this library.

• Linux : /var/log/
• macOS: /Users/NAME/Library/Logs
• Windows: Not sure where it is

[adrg]

Hi @ValentinTrinque. Sorry for the late response.
I think having some default paths for writing and searching log files could be useful.

/var/log should not be the default location in which user applications should store their logs on Linux, which is mostly for system services and applications requiring root access. It could be ~/.local/var/log though (e.g. ~/.local/var/log/my-app/error.log).

However, I think most user applications keep their logs somewhere in the user's home directory, probably relative to the $XDG_DATA_HOME directory (e.g. ~/.local/share/my-app/error.log or ~/.local/share/my-app/logs/error.log) or directly in the home directory (e.g. ~/.my-app/logs/error.log), not in a common place where user apps store their logs.

For example, Dropbox keeps its logs in ~/.dropbox/logs and Firefox keeps its crash reports in ~/.mozilla/firefox/Crash Reports.

[ValentinTrinque]

No worries. You are right.

I dug into the XDG standard once again and the latest version states :

The $XDG_STATE_HOME contains state data that should persist between (application) restarts, but that is not important or portable enough to the user that it should be stored in $XDG_DATA_HOME. It may contain:

• actions history (logs, history, recently used files, …)
• current state of the application that can be reused on a restart (view, layout, open files, undo history, …)

So, in the end, we may not have to support a specific logs folder, but use the $XDG_STATE_HOME.

Link: https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html

[adrg]

Yeah, I read about that as well. The XDG_STATE_HOME variable has only been introduced as a standard environment variable this year, so I'm not sure how many applications use that yet.

EDIT: that also reminded me that I have to update the README as I have that variable listed as non-standard. Thank you :).