Writing a script for more than one user

[rockinup1231]

Okay, well I'm writing a script that has the simple task of downloading an archive, making a directory, and extracting the archive to that directory. The part I'm having trouble with is writing the part that tells the computer to make a directory. If it were for me alone, I could simply tell it...

mkdir /home/justin/.kde/share/apps/deKorator/themes/

However, I know that each time it will be used, the user will not be "justin". What could I do to make this command work for anyone that decided to use it? Thanks for any help in advance.

P.S. I am doing this for multiple purposes. The first being for my own convenience (now and possibly in the future), and for educational purposes (I'm new to writing scripts. I know what to do, but not all the commands). It's basic function will be to install a specific deKorator theme for the user, and also install deKorator and set it up the themes directory (which it doesn't seem to do on it's own).

EDIT:I just figured it out....I googled it (was trying to before) and found I wasn't asking the right question. I could make said line I mentioned before as

mkdir $HOME/.kde/share/apps/deKorator/themes/

[i92guboj]

EDIT:I just figured it out....I googled it (was trying to before) and found I wasn't asking the right question. I could make said line I mentioned before as

mkdir $HOME/.kde/share/apps/deKorator/themes/

I am glad that you found your way by yourself.

I will just add a little tip: when using file and directory names under bash, remember that in linux, names with blank spaces are legal.

Having a space in your home directory is not usually a good idea, but it's not impossible. So, just to be on the safe side, you should always use double quotes when writing paths of file names, like this:

mkdir "$HOME/.kde/share/apps/deKorator/themes/"

You can just quote the unknown part, since the rest of the string is well known and you are sure that it doesn't contain spaces:

mkdir "$HOME"/.kde/share/apps/deKorator/themes/

If you don't quote this, and your home dir is called "Jean Paul", then mkdir will receive two arguments, the first will be "Jean", the second would be "Paul/.kde/share/apps/deKorator/themes/" and you will get "inexplicable" errors.

That's very unprovable in this case, but since failures in the quotation are one of the most common errors amongst newcomers, I just wanted to let you know about it so you don't get the bad habit.

[Cabhan]

i92 makes an excellent point about quoting, and it is a good one to remember.

I just want to add that because using your home directory is so common, Bash actually has a shortcut for this: '~' (which you also don't have to quote, which is nice). So your line could also be:

mkdir ~/.kde/share/apps/deKorator/themes/

And this would be the same as using "$HOME".