love.filesystem

Provides an interface to the user's filesystem.

This module provides access to Files in two places, and two places only:

• The root folder of the .love-file. (Alternatively a directory).
• The root folder of the write directory.

Each game is granted a single directory on the system where files can be saved through love.filesystem. This is the only directory where love.filesystem can write files. These directories will typically be found in something like:

• Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\Love\ or %appdata%\Love\
• Windows Vista and 7: C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\LOVE or %appdata%\Love\
• Linux: $XDG_DATA_HOME/love/ or ~/.local/share/love/
• mac: /Users/user/Library/Application Support/LOVE/

Files that are opened for write or append will always be created in the save directory. The same goes for other operations that involve writing to the filesystem, like mkdir.

Files that are opened for read will be looked for in the save directory, and then in the game root folder (in that order). So if a file with a certain filename (and path) exist in both the .love-file and the save folder, the one in the save directory takes precedence.

Note: All paths are relative to the .love and save directory. (except for the get*Directory() calls)

It is recommended to set your game's identity first in your conf.lua. You can set it with love.filesystem.setIdentity() as well.

Types

File	Represents a file on the filesystem.
FileData	Data representing the contents of a file.

Functions

love.filesystem.enumerate	Returns all the files and subdirectories in the directory.
love.filesystem.exists	Check whether a file or directory exists.
love.filesystem.getAppdataDirectory	Returns the application data directory (could be the same as getUserDirectory)
love.filesystem.getIdentity	Gets the write directory name for your game.
love.filesystem.getLastModified	Gets the last modification time of a file.
love.filesystem.getSaveDirectory	Gets the full path to the designated save directory.
love.filesystem.getUserDirectory	Returns the path of the user's directory
love.filesystem.getWorkingDirectory	Gets the current working directory.
love.filesystem.init	Initializes love.filesystem, will be called internally, so should not be used explicitly.
love.filesystem.isDirectory	Check whether something is a directory.
love.filesystem.isFile	Check whether something is a file.
love.filesystem.lines	Iterate over the lines in a file.
love.filesystem.load	Loads a Lua file (but does not run it).
love.filesystem.mkdir	Creates a directory.
love.filesystem.newFile	Creates a new File object.
love.filesystem.newFileData	Creates a new FileData object from a file on disk, or from a string in memory.
love.filesystem.read	Read the contents of a file.
love.filesystem.remove	Removes a file (or directory).
love.filesystem.setIdentity	Sets the write directory for your game.
love.filesystem.setSource	Sets the source of the game, where the code is present. Used internally.
love.filesystem.write	Write data to a file.

Enums

FileDecoder	How to decode a given FileData.
FileMode	The different modes you can open a File in.

See Also

• love

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