How do I store desktop application data in a cross platform way for python?

Question

I have a python desktop application that needs to store user data. On Windows, this is usually in %USERPROFILE%\\Application Data\\AppName\\, on OSX it\'s usual

Answer 1

You can try to use QSettings from Qt. You can obtain the path to your MyCompany/MyApp.ini file this way:

from PySide.QtCore import QSettings, QCoreApplication

QSettings.setDefaultFormat(QSettings.IniFormat)
QCoreApplication.setOrganizationName("MyCompany")
QCoreApplication.setApplicationName("MyApp")
settings = QSettings()
print(settings.fileName())

Alternatively, without changing any global state:

QSettings(
    QSettings.IniFormat, QSettings.UserScope,
    "MyCompany", "MyApp"
).fileName()

On Win7 you get something like:

C:\Users\MyUser\AppData\Roaming\MyCompany\MyApp.ini

On Linux (may vary):

/home/myuser/.config/MyCompany/MyApp.ini

I don't know the possible results for OSX (but I'd like to).

QSettings functionallity seem to be nice until you want to use registerFormat, which is not available in PySide, so there is no easy way to use YAML or JSON writers for settings.