path_expand()performs tilde expansion on a path, replacing instances of~or~userwith the user's home directory.path_home()constructs a path within the expanded users home directory, calling it with no arguments can be useful to verify what fs considers the home directory.path_expand_r()andpath_home_r()are equivalents which always use R's definition of the home directory.
Arguments
- path
A character vector of one or more paths.
- ...
Additional paths appended to the home directory by
path().
Details
path_expand() differs from base::path.expand() in the interpretation of
the home directory of Windows. In particular path_expand() uses the path
set in the USERPROFILE environment variable and, if unset, then uses
HOMEDRIVE/HOMEPATH.
In contrast base::path.expand() first checks for R_USER then HOME,
which in the default configuration of R on Windows are both set to the user's
document directory, e.g. C:\\Users\\username\\Documents.
base::path.expand() also does not support ~otheruser syntax on Windows,
whereas path_expand() does support this syntax on all systems.
This definition makes fs more consistent with the definition of home
directory used on Windows in other languages, such as
python
and rust. This
is also more compatible with external tools such as git and ssh, both of
which put user-level files in USERPROFILE by default. It also allows you to
write portable paths, such as ~/Desktop that points to the Desktop location
on Windows, macOS and (most) Linux systems.
Users can set the R_FS_HOME environment variable to override the
definitions on any platform.
See also
R for Windows FAQ - 2.14
for behavior of base::path.expand().
Examples
# Expand a path
path_expand("~/bin")
#> /home/runner/bin
# You can use `path_home()` without arguments to see what is being used as
# the home diretory.
path_home()
#> /home/runner
path_home("R")
#> /home/runner/R
# This will likely differ from the above on Windows
path_home_r()
#> /home/runner