Path to user desktop using python

This may seem stupid to a few, but I was wondering if there was some code to find out the operating system of the present user, and then the path to his Desktop using python.

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2 Answers

On a default Ubuntu running Python 2.7 you can use the following commands

#!/usr/bin/env python
import os
import platform
userhome = os.path.expanduser('~')
desktop = userhome + '/Desktop/'
useros = platform.system() # returns e.g. 'Linux' 'Windows'
distribution = platform.linux_distribution() 'in case it's a Unix

When coding a cross platfrom application you should be aware that not all desktop environments make use of a desktop directory. This will even be true for some XDG desktops.

• Our code should therefore not rely on the presence of a desktop directory.

In case you code for different locales you need to parse the name given for the desktop directory from the users's xdg desktop configuration (see How can I get the (XDG) Default User Directories from Python?).

8

import subprocess
import os.path
try: return subprocess.check_output(['xdg-user-dir', 'DESKTOP'])
except: return os.path.expanduser("~/Desktop")

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