[Feature request] Environment variable for non-standard install location

[yermulnik]

Discussed in #561

^{Originally posted by dbopus2 March 10, 2025}
Would you consider adding an environment variable for non-standard install location? Same functionality as the -i and --install cli options.

[yermulnik]

Also:

• Update https://tfswitch.warrensbox.com/usage/commandline/ accordingly
• Update https://tfswitch.warrensbox.com/usage/config-files/ accordingly
• Consider adding TOML config key for consistency
• Add tests for both env var and config key
• Consider implementing the same for -b, --bin=value arg
• Side task: add arch and log-level TOML keys description to https://tfswitch.warrensbox.com/usage/config-files/

[yermulnik]

This partially overlaps with #559, so I'll need to have that other PR merged first before I can start looking into this feature request 🤷🏻

[mj790]

I'd actually like to see the -i option added to the TOML file as well.

Had a situation come up at work the other day where this would come in very handy. On a shared server with a small C drive, if we have a bunch of users that work with multiple different terraform versions it can start to add up.

Having to pass -i to tfswitch all the time is a pain so being able to default the alternate location in the TOML file would be great.

[yermulnik]

@mj790 Thanks for describing your use case. Usual "thumbs up" to the first message would allow us to easily prioritize issues 👍🏻 I'll work on this request once that other PR is reviewed and approved by @warrensbox and @MatthewJohn. Stay tuned 🎶

[yermulnik]

#566
Implementation caveat: the var and config attribute are going to be consistent with cmdline arg and the specified path will be appended with .terraform.versions (so if you specify /tmp, the final install directory will be /tmp/.terraform.versions). JFYI.