How can I make bash convert '~'?

Question

Some programs do not recognize tilde shortcut in filenames and expect full canonical paths, e.g. /home/dave/myfile.txt instead of ~/myfile.txt.

Is there a way to make bash replace ~ and ~user by full canonical paths anytime a tilde is used?

Answer 1

When you run a command in the Bash shell, like:

command ~/myfile.txt

the shell first makes the expansion of ~ (unless it's quoted) then it run the command with the result.

But it's true, some programs don't interpret the ~, for example:

$ cat "~/myfile.txt"
~/myfile.txt: No such file or directory

but this works insted:

nano "~/myfile.txt"

But this behavior is masked by the Bash expansion, so you don't need any further interpretation.

Maybe it's obvious, but note that if a program uses a configuration files and expects some paths in it, it's not a Bash duty expand them.