Is this an intended behaviour?

[kira607]

Hi!

I'm trying to use platformdirs for a simple to-do console app.

My setup:

• python 3.12.6
• OS: Kubuntu 24.04
• IDE: VSCode 1.96.2 (snap version)
• platformdirs 4.3.6

Mainly I've been using two functions:

1. user_data_path()
2. user_config_path()

If I run the app from the default OS terminal I get expected paths:

user_config_path(): /home/<username>/.config/<appname>
user_data_path(): /home/<username>/.local/share/<appname>

If I try to run it from VSCode terminal I get another paths:

user_config_path(): /home/<username>/.config/<appname>
user_data_path(): /home/<username>/snap/code/179/.local/share/<appname>

The question is: Is this an indended behaior? That config path is consistent and data path chages depending on a terminal I'm running from?

[gaborbernat]

https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/latest/ allows environment variables to dictate the paths on Unix. This is explained at the top of the readme https://github.com/tox-dev/platformdirs#the-problem

[kira607]

Oh, I see, thanks!

[kira607]

For people that might come here later: It is a problem of VSCode, not the platformdirs. There is an open issue about VSCode changing XDG env variables and one comment has a workaround for it.