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LanceBaynes
Asked: 2011-01-20 03:55:26 +0800 CST

How to get given users "Desktop Path"

  • 772

How can i get the path to the given users desktop?

I used this:

echo $(awk "NR==$(awk 'BEGIN {FS=":"} {print $3}' /etc/passwd | awk "/^$(id -u USERSNAMEHERE)$/ {print NR}")" /etc/passwd | awk 'BEGIN {FS=":"} {print $6}')/Desktop

are there any better ones?

What if the users Desktop's name isn't "Desktop"?

Thank you!

p.s.: using Fedora 14 but are there any "general" methods to find out the given users desktop?

linux fedora

5 Answers

  1. Try xdg-user-dirs.

    That page has an example that should work for the current user:

    test -f ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-~/.config}/user-dirs.dirs && \
    source ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-~/.config}/user-dirs.dirs
echo ${XDG_DESKTOP_DIR:-$HOME/Desktop}

    Also, if you have to read /etc/passwd, it's better to use the output of getent passwd, because some user data might be stored in NIS, LDAP, or some other database.

    Combining that so it works for a user called USERSNAMEHERE:

    USER=USERSNAMEHERE
USERDIR=$(getent passwd $USER | cut -f 6 -d :)
USERDIRCONF=${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$USERDIR/.config}/user-dirs.dirs
test -f "$USERDIRCONF" && . "$USERDIRCONF"
echo "${XDG_DESKTOP_DIR:-$USERDIR/Desktop}"
    • 6

  2. Your command is impossibly complex.

    Here is a simplified version:

    getent passwd USERNAME | awk -F: '{print $6 "/Desktop"}'

    Here is an untangled version of your original:

    awk -v "id=$(id -u USERNAME)" -F: '{if ($3 == id) print $6 "/Desktop"}' /etc/passwd

    or

    awk -v "name=USERNAME" -F: '{if ($1 == name) print $6 "/Desktop"}' /etc/passwd
    • 2

  3. The xdg-user-dir utility can help you:

    $ xdg-user-dir DESKTOP
/home/user/Desktop

    It only works like this if you're logged as the user though. You can fool it by specifying XDG_CONFIG_HOME:

    $ XDG_CONFIG_HOME=/home/user xdg-user-dir DESKTOP
/home/user/Desktop

    If you look at the script itself, it roughly does the same thing as the snippet in Mikel's answer.

    • 1

  4. the path is $HOME/Desktop

    test by echo hello > $HOME/Desktop/testing.txt

    • 0

  5. You're making it way more complex than it has to be. ~UserName is an alias for UserName's home directory.

    Use ~UserName/Desktop.

    • -1