# class KStandardDirs | Site-independent access to standard KDE directories. More...
Definition | `#include <kstddirs.h>`
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#### Public Methods

- KStandardDirs ( )
- virtual ~KStandardDirs ()
- void addPrefix ( const QString& dir )
- bool addResourceType ( const char *type, const QString& relativename )
- bool addResourceDir ( const char *type, const QString& absdir)
- QString findResource ( const char *type, const QString& filename ) const
- QStringList findDirs ( const char *type, const QString& reldir ) const
- QString findResourceDir ( const char *type, const QString& filename) const
- QStringList findAllResources ( const char *type, const QString& filter = QString::null, bool recursive = false, bool uniq = false) const
- QStringList findAllResources ( const char *type, const QString& filter, bool recursive, bool uniq, QStringList &relPaths) const
- void addKDEDefaults ()
- bool addCustomized (KConfig *config)
- QStringList resourceDirs (const char *type) const
- QStringList allTypes () const
- QString saveLocation (const char *type, const QString& suffix = QString::null, bool create = true) const
- QString kfsstnd_prefixes ()
- QString localkdedir () const

#### Public Static Methods

- static QString findExe ( const QString& appname, const QString& pathstr=QString::null, bool ignoreExecBit=false )
- static int findAllExe ( QStringList& list, const QString& appname, const QString& pathstr=QString::null, bool ignoreExecBit=false )
- static bool makeDir (const QString& dir, int mode = 0755)
- static QString kde_default (const char *type)
- static bool exists (const QString &fullPath)

## Detailed Description

This is one of the most central classes in kdelibs as it provides a basic service: It knows where the files reside on the user's hard disk. And it's meant to be the only one that knows -- to make the real location as transparent as possible to both the user and the applications.

To this end it insulates the application from all information and applications always refer to a file with a resource type (e.g. icon) and a filename (e.g. khexdit.xpm). In an ideal world the application would make no assumption where this file is and leave it up to KStandardDirs::findResource("apps", "Home.desktop") to apply this knowledge to return /opt/kde/share/applnk/Home.desktop or locate("data", "kgame/background.jpg") to return /opt/kde/share/apps/kgame/background.jpg

The main idea behind KStandardDirs is that there are several toplevel prefixes below which the files lie. One of these prefixes is the one where the user installed kdelibs, one is where the application was installed, and one is $HOME/.kde, but there may be even more. Under these prefixes there are several well defined suffixes where specific resource types are to be found. For example, for the resource type "html" the suffixes could be share/doc/HTML and share/doc/kde/HTML. So the search algorithm basicly appends to each prefix each registered suffix and tries to locate the file there. To make the thing even more complex, it's also possible to register absolute paths that KStandardDirs looks up after not finding anything in the former steps. They can be useful if the user wants to provide specific directories that aren't in his $HOME/.kde directory for, for example, icons.

### Standard resources that kdelibs allocates are:

- apps - Applications menu (.desktop files).
- cgi - CGIs to run from kdehelp.
- config - Configuration files.
- data - Where applications store data.
- exe - Executables in $prefix/bin. findExe for a function that takes $PATH into account.
- html - HTML documentation.
- icon - Icons, see KIconLoader.
- lib - Libraries.
- locale - Translation files for KLocale.
- mime - Mime types.
- module - Module (dynamically loaded library).
- services - Services.
- servicetypes - Service types.
- sound - Application sounds.
- templates - Templates
- wallpaper - Wallpapers.
- tmp - Temporary files (specfic for both current host and current user)
- socket - UNIX Sockets (specific for both current host and current user)

A type that is added by the class KApplication if you use it, is appdata. This one makes the use of the type data a bit easier as it appends the name of the application. So while you had to locate("data", "appname/filename") so you can also write locate("appdata", "filename") if your KApplication instance is called "appname". Please note though that you cannot use the "appdata" type if you intend to use it in an applet for Kicker because 'appname' would be "Kicker" instead of the applet's name. Therefore, for applets, you've got to work around this by using locate("data", "appletname/filename").

### KStandardDirs supports the following environment variables:

- KDEDIRS: This may set an additional number of directory prefixes to search for resources. The directories should be seperated by ':'. The directories are searched in the order they are specified.
- KDEDIR: Used for backwards compatibility. As KDEDIRS but only a single directory may be specified. If KDEDIRS is set KDEDIR is ignored.
- KDEHOME: The directory where changes are saved to. This directory is used to search for resources first. If KDEHOME is not specified it defaults to "$HOME/.kde"

KStandardDirs ( ) | ### KStandardDirs

KStandardDirs constructor. It just initializes the caches.

~KStandardDirs () | ### ~KStandardDirs

[virtual]

KStandardDirs destructor.

void addPrefix ( const QString& dir ) | ### addPrefix

Add another search dir to front of the `fsstnd` list.

- When compiling kdelibs, the prefix is added to this.
- KDEDIRS or KDEDIR is taking into account
- Additional dirs may be loaded from kdeglobals.

Parameters:

dir | The directory to append relative paths to.

bool addResourceType ( const char *type, const QString& relativename ) | ### addResourceType

Add suffixes for types.

You may add as many as you need, but it is advised that there is exactly one to make writing definite. All basic types (kde_default) are added by addKDEDefaults(), but for those you can add more relative paths as well.

The later a suffix is added, the higher its priority. Note, that the suffix should end with / but doesn't have to start with one (as prefixes should end with one). So adding a suffix for app_pics would look like KGlobal::dirs()->addResourceType("app_pics", "share/app/pics");

Parameters:

type | Specifies a short descriptive string to access files of this type.
relativename | Specifies a directory relative to the root of the KFSSTND.

bool addResourceDir ( const char *type, const QString& absdir) | ### addResourceDir

Add absolute path at the end of the search path for particular types (for example in case of icons where the user specifies extra paths).

You shouldn't need this function in 99% of all cases besides adding user-given paths.

Parameters:

type | Specifies a short descriptive string to access files of this type.
absdir | Points to directory where to look for this specific type. Non-existant directories may be saved but pruned.

QString findResource ( const char *type, const QString& filename ) | ### findResource

[const]

Try to find resource in the following order:

- All PREFIX/<relativename> paths (most recent first).
- All absolute paths (most recent first).

The filename should be a filename relative to the base dir for resources. So is a way to get the path to libkdecore.la to findResource("lib", "libkdecore.la"). KStandardDirs will then look into the subdir lib of all elements of all prefixes ($KDEDIRS) for a file libkdecore.la and return the path to the first one it finds (e.g. /opt/kde/lib/libkdecore.la)

Parameters:

type | The type of the wanted resource
filename | A relative filename of the resource.

Returns: A full path to the filename specified in the second argument, or QString::null if not found.

QStringList findDirs ( const char *type, const QString& reldir ) | ### findDirs

[const]

Try to find all directories whose names consist of the specified type and a relative path. So would findDirs("apps", "Settings") return

- /opt/kde/share/applnk/Settings/
- /home/joe/.kde/share/applnk/Settings/

Note that it appends / to the end of the directories, so you can use this right away as directory names.

Parameters:

type | The type of the base directory.
reldir | Relative directory.

Returns: A list of matching directories, or an empty list if the resource specified is not found.

QString findResourceDir ( const char *type, const QString& filename) | ### findResourceDir

[const]

Try to find the directory the file is in. It works the same as findResource(), but it doesn't return the filename but the name of the directory.

This way the application can access a couple of files that have been installed into the same directory without having to look for each file.

findResourceDir("lib", "libkdecore.la") would return the path of the subdir libkdecore.la is found first in (e.g. /opt/kde/lib/)

Returns: The directory where the file specified in the second argument is located, or QString::null if the type of resource specified is unknown or the resource cannot be found.

QStringList findAllResources ( const char *type, const QString& filter = QString::null, bool recursive = false, bool uniq = false) | ### findAllResources

[const]

Try to find all resources with the specified type.

The function will look into all specified directories and return all filenames in these directories.

Parameters:

type | The type of resource to locate directories for.
filter | Only accept filenames that fit to filter. The filter may consist of an optional directory and a QRexExp wildcard expression. E.g. "images\*.jpg"
recursive | Specifies if the function should decend into subdirectories.
uniq | If specified, only return items which have unique suffixes - supressing duplicated filenames.

Returns: A list of directories matching the resource specified, or an empty list if the resource type is unknown.

QStringList findAllResources ( const char *type, const QString& filter, bool recursive, bool uniq, QStringList &relPaths) | ### findAllResources

[const]

Try to find all resources with the specified type.

The function will look into all specified directories and return all filenames (full and relative paths) in these directories.

Parameters:

type | The type of resource to locate directories for.
filter | Only accept filenames that fit to filter. The filter may consist of an optional directory and a QRexExp wildcard expression. E.g. "images\*.jpg"
recursive | Specifies if the function should decend into subdirectories.
uniq | If specified, only return items which have unique suffixes.
list | Of relative paths for the given type.
relPaths | The list to store the relative paths into These can be used later to locate the file

Returns: A list of directories matching the resource specified, or an empty list if the resource type is unknown.

QString findExe ( const QString& appname, const QString& pathstr=QString::null, bool ignoreExecBit=false ) | ### findExe

[static]

Find the executable in the system path.

A valid executable must be a file and have its executable bit set.

Parameters:

appname | The name of the executable file for which to search.
pathstr | The path which will be searched. If this is 0 (default), the $PATH environment variable will be searched.
ignoreExecBit | If true, an existing file will be returned even if its executable bit is not set.

Returns: The path of the executable. If it was not found, it will return QString::null.

See also: findAllExe()

int findAllExe ( QStringList& list, const QString& appname, const QString& pathstr=QString::null, bool ignoreExecBit=false ) | ### findAllExe

[static]

Find all occurences of an executable in the system path.

Parameters:

list | Will be filled with the pathnames of all the executables found. Will be empty if the executable was not found.
appname | The name of the executable for which to search.
pathstr | The path list which will be searched. If this is 0 (default), the $PATH environment variable will be searched.
ignoreExecBit | If true, an existing file will be returned even if its executable bit is not set.

Returns: The number of executables found, 0 if none were found.

See also: findExe()

void addKDEDefaults () | ### addKDEDefaults

This function adds the defaults that are used by the current KDE version.

It's a series of addResourceTypes() and addPrefix() calls. You normally wouldn't call this function because it's called for you from KGlobal.

bool addCustomized (KConfig *config) | ### addCustomized

Read customized entries out of the given config object and add them via addResourceDirs().

Parameters:

config | The object the entries are read from. This should contain global config files

Returns: true if new config paths have been added from `config`.

QStringList resourceDirs (const char *type) | ### resourceDirs

[const]

This function is used internally by almost all other function as it serves and fills the directories cache.

Returns: The list of possible directories for the specified `type`. The function updates the cache if possible. If the resource type specified is unknown, it will return an empty list. Note, that the directories are asured to exist beside the save location, which may not exist, but is returned anyway.

QStringList allTypes () | ### allTypes

[const]

This function will return a list of all the types that KStandardDirs supports.

Returns: All types that KDE supports

QString saveLocation (const char *type, const QString& suffix = QString::null, bool create = true) | ### saveLocation

[const]

Find a location to save files into for the given type in the user's home directory.

Parameters:

suffix | A subdirectory name. Makes it easier for you to create subdirectories. You can't pass filenames here, you _have_ to pass directory names only and add possible filename in that directory yourself. A directory name always has a trailing slash ('/').
create | If set, saveLocation() will create the directories needed (including those given by `suffix`).

Returns: A path where resources of the specified type should be saved, or QString::null if the resource type is unknown.

bool makeDir (const QString& dir, int mode = 0755) | ### makeDir

[static]

Recursively create still-missing directories in the given path.

The resulting permissions will depend on the current umask setting. permission = mode & ~umask.

Parameters:

dir | Absolute path of the directory to be made.
mode | Directory permissions.

QString kde_default (const char *type) | ### kde_default

[static]

This returns a default relative path for the standard KDE resource types. Below is a list of them so you get an idea of what this is all about.

- data - share/apps
- html - share/doc/HTML
- icon - share/icon
- config - share/config
- pixmap - share/pixmaps
- apps - share/applnk
- sound - share/sounds
- locale - share/locale
- services - share/services
- servicetypes - share/servicetypes
- mime - share/mimelnk
- wallpaper - share/wallpapers
- templates - share/templates
- exe - bin
- lib - lib

Returns: Static default for the specified resource. You should probably be using locate() or locateLocal() instead.

See also: locate(), locateLocal()

QString kfsstnd_prefixes () | ### kfsstnd_prefixes

QString localkdedir () | ### localkdedir

[const]

Don't use this function if you can use locateLocal

Returns: the toplevel directory in which KStandardDirs will store things. Most likely $HOME/.kde

bool exists (const QString &fullPath) | ### exists

[static]

checks for existance and accessability faster than creating a QFileInfo first

- Version: $Id: kstddirs.h,v 1.78 2001/01/20 11:33:05 coolo Exp $
- Author: Stephan Kulow <coolo@kde.org> and Sirtaj Singh Kang <taj@kde.org>
- Generated: root@sparc.ports.openbsd.org on Wed May 2 09:34:58 2001, using kdoc 2.0a53.