[Gretl-devel] Install location databases

On Mac OS X function files/packages and databases will be installed on demand in subdirectories of a "personal" directory "~/Library/Application Support/gretl" This is regardless of how the gretldir is determined (a fixed folder of following the current directory as determined via the shell). Something similar happens for Windows. On Linux (as tested by me on Ubuntu 10.04 and Xubuntu 11.04/11.10 all of which running in VirtualBox virtual machines) the situation is quite different. Function files/packages are stored in a user's work dir. However if one sets the working directory to follow the shell current directory one may end up with multiple installations of the same functions. With functions scattered over several different directories. I find this rather confusing. Databases appear to be only installed in /usr/local/share/gretl/db. When I tried to install a database from the database server I got an error message "Permission denied". Why not in "work dir/db"? I would like to suggest to install function files/packages and databases on Linux for users in a fixed directory so that the location is independent of the gretl working directory. Similar to Mac OS X and Windows. Something like ~/.config/gretl or even ~/library/gretl or whatever else is sensible for Linux. Berend Hasselman