This module is a helper for installing, reading and finding configuration file locations. It's intended to work in every supported Perl5 environment and will always try to Do The Right Thing(tm). File::ConfigDir is a module to help out when perl modules (especially applications) need to read and store configuration files from more than one location. Writing user configuration is easy thanks to File::HomeDir, but what when the system administrator needs to place some global configuration or there will be system related configuration (in /etc on UNIX(tm) or $ENV{windir} on Windows(tm)) and some network configuration in nfs mapped /etc/p5-app or $ENV{ALLUSERSPROFILE} . "\\Application Data\\p5-app", respectively. File::ConfigDir has no "do what I mean" mode - it's entirely up to the user to pick the right directory for each particular application.