Xresources and environment variables

[alex.blackbit]

Hi,

I have a slight problem in understanding the interaction between the X server resource database and environment variables.
My ~/.Xresources looks rather common, there is one statement though where I would like to be able to use an environment variable.
That's because I store my dotfiles, including ~/.Xresources in a git repository and use them on several machines.
Not on all machines is my home directory in the same location, therefore it would be nice to be able to use $HOME.

This is the particular line:

[i92guboj]

As far as I know you can't do that, at least not in the sense you seem to imply.

This file is not parsed by a shell, so there's no variable substitution. It admits some wildcard-ing, which, coincidentally, resemble those of the shell. So, you can use something like "clock*background" to match more than one target. But no variable expansion.

As far as I know (though admittedly I didn't look at the code myself) this is stored (and then served) by the X server as a list of strings. It's xlib the one that "serve" the requested setting to the application requesting it, which essentially receives the same string you have put in the file. Then, it is up to the application how that string is interpreted (so, it should be possible for the application to do the variable expansion, I guess).

One thing you can try and that might work for some applications is to swap '$HOME' with '~'. Again, whether it will work or not will depend on the application, if I am not horribly mistaken.

[Ant P.]

The preprocessor seems like the nicest way to do it if you really want it in .Xresources, though there's also the option of setting $URXVT_PERL_LIB in your xsession scripts.

[alex.blackbit]

I'll stick with the preprocessor.
Thanks for your thoughts.