[Python-Dev] PEP: per user site-packages directory

[Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven]

-On [20080120 19:34], Christian Heimes (lists at cheimes.de) wrote:
>Most Python developers should the meaning of "~". Should I replace ~
>with $HOME for those who don't have as much experience with Unix as we?

The problem is that ~ is an expansion character. It expands the contents of
$HOME. If HOME is set to /usr/local, using ~ will expand to /usr/local.

This behaviour is undefined by POSIX, if HOME is null/empty than expanding ~
is undefined. If it is just ~ then it will expand to the contents of HOME, if
~ is followed by a string then it will do a getpwnam() call on the string and
expand that to the initial working directory of said login name string.

HOME is POSIX-mandated to be '[t]he pathname of the user's home directory'.

-- 
Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven <asmodai(-at-)in-nomine.org> / asmodai
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