aspiers/stow

Stow should look in $STOW_DIR for .stowrc

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#121 opened on Jan 18, 2025

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easyenhancementhelp wanted

Description

I was a bit surprised to realize that running stow from somewhere outside of my $STOW_DIR did not respect the .stowrc in $STOW_DIR. The documentation does indicate that this is expected behavior:

Stow searches for default command line options at .stowrc (current directory) and ~/.stowrc (home directory) in that order.

I feel that $STOW_DIR should be added to this list, since my understanding the point of $STOW_DIR is to let you run stow from outside of your $STOW_DIR. Of course, you can use the ~/.stowrc location (which I will start doing), but IMO the natural place to place your .stowrc is in your $STOW_DIR since it's likely version-controlled.

(Bonus suggestion: Look in ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME} instead of $HOME for .stowrc)

Contributor guide

Tech stack
None
Domain
cli
Issue type
feature
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
2
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
under 1 hour
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
fresh
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
clear
Prerequisites
Basic PerlEnvironment variablesStow usage
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
85
Research direction
Locate the main script (likely stow.in) where .stowrc is loaded. Modify the search order to include $STOW DIR/.stowrc after the current directory and before ~/.stowrc, following the existing pattern. The bonus suggestion about XDG CONFIG HOME can be considered separately.