I'm on OS-X (Mavericks, if that matters), and I'm making a bash script that will use resources from a folder called "templates". I'm trying to figure out where I should put it (the templates folder). I'd like to make it so the user doesn't need to modify their path when they install it, so I'd rather not do it the way the terminal mysql command does it (it lives in a folder in /usr/local/mysql/bin). I really want to be able to put them into usr/bin, but I don't know if it's "polite" to put folders in there (I don't see any in there).
Right now I'm leaning towards putting the scripts in usr/bin and having the templates in usr/lib. Is that how this type of thing is normally done, or is there another way? I'd like to follow a convention, assuming there is one. I'd also like it to apply to as many Unix platforms as possible (I'd like to put in a directory where bash scripts live that's consistent across as many Unix platforms as possible). Thanks.
If you follow the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS), your executable goes in /usr/local/bin, while read-only template files go in /usr/local/share/YOURAPP/. To quote the FHS:
/usr/local/shareThe requirements for the contents of this directory are the same as
/usr/share. […]
and:
The
/usr/sharehierarchy is for all read-only architecture independent data files.
(Emphasis added)
If the system admin is meant to customize the template files to take effect system-wide, then they would simply go in /etc/YOURAPP/templates (or something like that).
If the template files are customized on a per-user basis, then the modified copies of the templates (copied from /usr/local/share/YOURAPP/templates) need to be saved in the user's directory, under $HOME/.config/YOURAPP/templates or something like that (thanks to technosaurus for the correction).
You mentioned that you want to install the templates in a directory alongside your executable. That is not the standard approach on UNIX, at least going by the FHS. If you really want to go this route, there is a sort of convention of installing your app to /opt/YOURAPP/, using whatever organization you want inside that folder.
In all cases, it is not good practice to install executables directly to /usr/bin, as that directory is considered to be under the exclusive control of the OS/distribution. If you want to install there, the accepted way to do that is to create a package for the package manager of every supported OS/distribution.