[Python-Dev] ntpath r54364

[Christian Heimes]

Tim Golden wrote:
> Frustratingly, I don't believe there's *any* canonical
> way to find ~user without actually going through the whole
> process of getting a token and impersonating them. If
> they've logged onto this machine already you can have
> a good go by following the code posted the other day
> on c.l.py [1] (although I'm now not sure about the l10n
> aspects which Christian mentioned). Any technique of
> going up one (from your own profile) and then down one
> is no better than assuming that all users are in /home
> on a *nix box.

A while ago I've seen a variant of ExpandEnvironmentStrings that takes a
user token, too. It's called ExpandEnvironmentStringsForUser().
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa373507(VS.85).aspx

Before anybody gets exciting about the good news: Here is the bad news.
A user token can't be obtained easily. In fact it requires a login +
password or a process handler. :(

> As to a logged-on user's *own* home path, I'd prefer
> HOMEDRIVE/PATH over USERPROFILE since the latter is at
> least explictly named HOMEsomething, although the latter
> can be the fallback. Both are present on Win2k & on WinXP.
> Can't check WinNT or Win9x but I don't know if we're looking
> to support those or not.

Python 2.6 targets Windows 2000 and newer. So no, we don't have to
support NT and the 9x series any more.

Christian