Node.js - Find home directory in platform agnostic

Question

Process.platform returns "win32" for Windows. On Windows a user's home directory might be C:\Users[USERNAME] or C:\Documents and Settings[USERNAME] depending on which version of Windows is being used. On Unix this isn't an issue.

Answer 1

os.homedir() was added by this PR and is part of the public 4.0.0 release of nodejs.

---

Example usage:

const os = require('os');

console.log(os.homedir());

Answer 2

Well, it would be more accurate to rely on the feature and not a variable value. Especially as there are 2 possible variables for Windows.

function getUserHome() {
  return process.env.HOME || process.env.USERPROFILE;
}

EDIT: as mentioned in a more recent answer, https://stackoverflow.com/a/32556337/103396 is the right way to go (require('os').homedir()).

Answer 3

As mentioned in a more recent answer, the preferred way is now simply:

const homedir = require('os').homedir();

[Original Answer]: Why not use the USERPROFILE environment variable on win32?

function getUserHome() {
  return process.env[(process.platform == 'win32') ? 'USERPROFILE' : 'HOME'];
}

Answer 4

Use osenv.home(). It's maintained by isaacs and I believe is used by npm itself.

https://github.com/isaacs/osenv