Re: Looking for location of tmp directory in Octave flatpak.

[Mike Miller]

On Tue, Jan 01, 2019 at 19:22:03 -0500, RT wrote:
> When I go to access or open the tmp directory while in the Flatpak Octave
> program the directory is not the same tmp directory if using a file manager
> to access /tmp/.  I'm trying to find out where the Octave flatpak tmp
> directory is located so I can directly access it using a file manager?

This is more of a general flatpak question, but yes, flatpak apps use a
private /tmp directory by default. It is not accessible at all on the
normal filesystem. This is by design because /tmp is supposed to be
volatile and ephemeral.

If you need to see Octave's temporary files for some reason, you have a
couple of options. First, you can define TMPDIR in Octave to use a
different directory of your choice, for example

    >> mkdir /home/user/tmp
    >> setenv TMPDIR /home/user/tmp

Or, you can force flatpak to share /tmp with the host operating system.
If you normally run Octave with

    flatpak run org.octave.Octave …

then you can run it with the --filesystem option

    flatpak run --filesystem=/tmp org.octave.Octave …

IMHO these are fine temporary measures for debugging or checking
something, but it's best not to rely on being able to peek into Octave's
temporary directory from another process.

-- 
mike

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