Rationale behind naming "dot d" (.d) directories

[Jordan K. Hubbard]

I agree that ${prefix}/var/db is far from ideal, but at least it's  
documented as mutable in hier(7).  The same cannot be said for $ 
{prefix}/share, even though it might make more sense from a config  
file vs "database" point of view.  Think of "database" in the highly  
abstract sense, if it helps to reduce the ringing in your head. :-)

- Jordan

On Apr 22, 2009, at 11:25 PM, Ryan Schmidt wrote:

> "man porthier" says ${prefix}/var/db is for "misc. automatically  
> generated system-specific database files". These would only be small  
> text files containing configuration information, so they're not  
> databases, so I don't know if this would be the right place...  
> though getting them out of ${prefix}/etc isn't entirely a bad idea,  
> since I don't want users modifying them. Would a place under $ 
> {prefix}/share be something to consider? They are "architecture- 
> independent files"... Then again, though the user shouldn't modify  
> the .ini files we install, the user may want to add her own .ini  
> files.