[Gretl-devel] directory structure in CVS
I've taken a first step in modifying the gretl directory
structure, in CVS and the current Windows snapshot, following the
discussions here a few days back.
I've split the old "userdir", which served both as the repository
for automatically generated files and as the default location for
explicit file input/output on the user's part, into two:
(a) "dotdir": this holds the automatic files. It is not
user-selectable (directories of this sort are rarely if ever
user-configurable). On unix-type systems it is HOME/.gretl, and
on MS Windows it is APPDATA\gretl, where "APPDATA" is a standard
Windows API thing, localized and user-ized. It may expand to
something like
"C:\Documents and Settings\cottrell\Application data"
(b) "workdir": the default path for explicit user file I/O. This
defaults to HOME/gretl on unix, and to PERSONAL\gretl on Windows.
"PERSONAL" is again localized and user-ized. It may expand to
something like
"C:\Documents and Settings\cottrell\My Documents"
Unlike dotdir, this is user-configurable. For previous gretl
installations, it inherits the old "userdir" setting; for new
installs it can be changed under Tools/Preferences, as before.
I considered using just HOME (unix) or PERSONAL (Windows) for the
default workdir (without appending "/gretl"). But gretl writes
some files to this directory without explicit GUI filename
selection (e.g. the eqnprint and tabprint commands, the gnuplot
command in batch mode), and it seemed like bad form to dump stuff
into HOME or PERSONAL directly. If you don't want to use
{HOME,PERSONAL}/gretl for this purpose, change the preference and
blow the unneeded directory away.
A couple of other changes:
(1) The Windows installer no longer prompts for, or creates, a
per-user working directory. This is handled at run-time: the
appropriate "dotdir" and default "workdir" are created for the
current user, if they don't already exist (and if the default
workdir is not contradicted by an existing registry setting).
(2) Since the CWD (current working directory) is pretty much
inscrutable on Windows, we no longer use this as the default
for the "shelldir" variable: this now defaults to the "workdir".
(You can launch GUI program from a Windows console, but I don't
think anyone but me ever does that!)
Since (a) OS X is very much GUI-oriented and (b) gretl from the OS
X dmg starts up inside Gretl.app, which is definitely not a
sensible location for writing anything, I've also arranged for
shelldir to default to workdir on OS X.
On unix, the shelldir still defaults to whatever is the CWD on
startup. This could perhaps be user-configurable (CWD vs.
workdir), but it would be a somewhat arcane item.
As I say, this is a first step. I have not yet done anything
about automatically changing workdir based on the last directory
visited via the file open/save dialog. I'm not sure that's a good
idea, though it's open for discussion.
Allin.