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Use XDG_CONFIG_HOME if available #369

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44166c5
Use XDG_CONFIG_HOME if available
MrDowntempo May 5, 2025
e29aa7b
discard file extension when creating directory
MrDowntempo May 7, 2025
386a30c
handle cases with multiple extensions
MrDowntempo May 7, 2025
79b4b8c
Update nb docs to mention new defaults
MrDowntempo Jun 13, 2025
9686f24
Make nbrc in XDG_CONFIG_HOME not a dotfile by default
MrDowntempo Jun 13, 2025
e22285b
Update nb
MrDowntempo Jun 30, 2025
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16 changes: 12 additions & 4 deletions nb
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Expand Up @@ -438,10 +438,18 @@ _option_value_is_present() {

# $NBRC_PATH
#
# Default: `$HOME/.nbrc`
#
# The location of the .nbrc configuration file.
export NBRC_PATH="${NBRC_PATH:-"${HOME}/.${_ME}rc"}"
# Default: `$HOME/.nbrc`, or `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nb/config` if `XDG_CONFIG_HOME`
# is defined and `$HOME/.nbrc` does not already exist
#
# Check if XDG_CONFIG_HOME exists
if [[ -n "${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}" ]]; then
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@zachcran zachcran Jun 11, 2025

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Currently, I think this would always use XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nb/.nbrc if XDG_CONFIG_HOME is defined. It should probably still default to using $HOME/.nbrc if the file already exists so it doesn't break existing installations and setups.

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@MrDowntempo MrDowntempo Jun 13, 2025

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Ah, I think you're right. I hadn't considered that.

# If XDG_CONFIG_HOME exists put .nbrc config file in a subdirectory.
mkdir -p "${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/${_ME%%.*}" &&
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@zachcran zachcran Jun 29, 2025

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There is an _init_create_rc_file function defined here already. Should creation of the config directory be part of that function instead? I think it would just require one line before writing the default nbrc file, something like this:

mkdir -p "$(dirname ${NBRC_PATH})"

export NBRC_PATH="${NBRC_PATH:-"${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/${_ME%%.*}/${_ME}rc"}"
else
# Otherwise, use the default path
export NBRC_PATH="${NBRC_PATH:-"${HOME}/.${_ME}rc"}"
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@zachcran zachcran Jun 11, 2025

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Another option for the default config location is $HOME/.config/nb/ (the default value recommended in the XDG spec for XDG_CONFIG_HOME). Any thoughts from the maintainers/other users?

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@MrDowntempo MrDowntempo Jun 13, 2025

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I wasn't sure if it made sense to conform to the spec, if XDG_CONFIG_HOME wasn't explicitly set, especially since you can have independent notebooks in folders withe their own .nbrc and that wasn't the current default. But I would prefer if nb followed the spec by default (Hence the patch)

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@zachcran zachcran Jun 28, 2025

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I wasn't aware that each notebook could have its own .nbrc file! I'm struggling to find where this mentioned in the user guide website (https://xwmx.github.io/nb/), but I think I see the behavior defined starting on L564. Do you know if this behavior is documented in the user guide website yet?

Regardless, as far as I can tell the default for NBRC_PATH does not affect sourcing notebook-specific .nbrc files. The notebook-specific settings are hard-coded to be named .nbrc and NB_NOTEBOOK_PATH seems to depend on NB_DIR but not NBRC_PATH. NBRC_PATH is sourced on L455 prior to $NB_NOTEBOOK_PATH/.nbrc on L567, so I think regardless of default location they will both be sourced.

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@xwmx xwmx Jun 28, 2025

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@zachcran It's currently undocumented. If I recall correctly, the original use case where this came up was about using a specific editor for a notebook, which made me think about it as being more for user-specific settings, and therefore something that shouldn't be checked into the notebook repo. However, this would have to be .gitignored manually, so it seemed complicated and I decided to figure it out later. I'm open to suggestions.

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@xwmx xwmx Jun 28, 2025 •
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Also, that is correct that the notebook .nbrc should be unaffected by $NBRC_PATH. The settings in notebook .nbrc files should override any matching global settings regardless of where they are set.

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@zachcran zachcran Jun 29, 2025

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(Sorry for possible duplicate notifications, GitHub was behaving a bit strangely there) Thanks for the explanation! Is the ability to have notebook-specific .nbrc files something that you would like documented if someone is willing to do it? I could make an issue about it and label it with something like "Help Wanted" for now if you would like (and maybe work on it in the future, no promises though).

therefore something that shouldn't be checked into the notebook repo. However, this would have to be .gitignored manually, so it seemed complicated and I decided to figure it out later. I'm open to suggestions.

Would excluding the .nbrc file during the git add call be sufficient? After some digging, I learned that you can use "exclude" pathspecs with git add --all to ignore certain files. This would just require changing git -C "${_notebook_path}" add --all on L3768 to git -C "${_notebook_path}" add --all ':!.nbrc'. We can create a separate issue to discuss this further if needed, since it is a bit off topic here.

fi

# Handle symlinked NBRC_PATH.
if [[ -L "${NBRC_PATH}" ]]
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