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All programs should tell you where they store config files (utcc.utoronto.ca)

submitted 1 year ago by wet_lettuce@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

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I wholeheartedly agree with this blog post. I believe someone on here yesterday was asking about config file locations and setting them manually. This is in the same vein. I can't tell you how many times a command line method for discovering the location of a config file would have saved me 30 minutes of googling.

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[-] KIM_JONG_JUICEBOX@beehaw.org 42 points 1 year ago

Start your application / program with “strace” and see all the files it opens.

Also run “lsof” on a running process to see what files it has open.

[-] Dohnakun@lemmy.fmhy.ml 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Or use inotifywait from inotify-tools. It logs acces to specified file/folder.

[-] KIM_JONG_JUICEBOX@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago

Interesting. I have not heard of this tools. But you say specified file or folder, that means you already know the file location?

[-] leirda@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

You can call it recursively on .config (for instance), and watch for specific events (creation, deletion, modification, etc). But I expect this to be expensive on really large folders and I'd avoid it if I could.

Btw it's syscalls iirc (inotify-tools just exposes them)