Most platforms, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, support some kind of shell variables, which are often automatically set up by the system to point to common filesystem locations. The os.path module provides the expandvars function to expand these variables into their actual values (pathlib has no equivalent method). While these variables can be useful in locating common path locations, the cross-platform developer should understand that they are not consistent across platforms.
Some commonly used variables across different systems include the following:
|
Description
|
Windows
|
macOS
|
Linux
|
| Current user home directory | %HOME%, %USERPROFILE% | $HOME | $HOME |
| Temporary directory | %TMP%, %TEMP% | $TMPDIR | None |
| Path to default ... |
