Question

I write cross-platform java app and I need some place where I can store some amount of files. These files will be used by another java application that may run under another user. This mean that I cannot use:

System.getProperty("user.home");

since I may have no permissions to read/write these files. What I need is some way to get non-user-specific folder where every app can create/read/delete files (something like “C:\ProgramData” for windows).
Is there a cross-platform way to get such folder(at least for Windows and Linux), or if there is no any – what is the best way to get such folders for Windows(should work on XP-7), Linux and Android.
Any pieces of puzzle are welcomed.

Answer 1

I’m not aware of such such a cross-platform folder which is additionally readable by all users. But you can:

• Define a specific folder for each OS, commons-lang may help you determining the platform (see SystemUtils)
• Check if the folder read/writeable for the current user during application start-up.

Using a central configuration (where the data exchange folder is defined for this installation) may also be an option, but this depends on the packaging of your project.