The shell can expand ~ to your home directory.  $HOME usually has the same deal, but often you want to refer to the current users home directory from a context that may not support such expansion.I have had config files where $HOME works but ~ doesn't and vice versa.I would guess that fuse could provide something along these lines,  something like /var/myself -> $HOMEWith that I could place values in config files to point to things like /var/myself/backdrops/pornography/wtf/yarly.jpgIs there something like this already?   If not, are there good reasons for there not being something like this?
Is there a standard symbolic link to the current users home directory?
symlink
I understand your concern but the answer is no there is not such thing.The usual method is to ask the OS the user's home path, or get the $HOME variable. All these options needs always some coding from the application. A lot of applications, like bash, offer the alias ~ (open(2) does not translate that). Of course a vfs or a fuse module could be implemented to do this. Probably there is something to do that, I am going to ask that!But is it really needed? You can use a workaround like:Create an script to start the program that links the $HOME to a relative path or a known location.Use pam_exec to link the $HOME dir to a known location http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/pam/Linux-PAM-html/sag-pam_exec.html 