Midnight Commander config dir location startup option

That turned out to be simpler as one might think. MC_HOME variable can be set to alternative path prior to starting mc. Man pages are not something you can find the answer right away =)

here's how it works: - usual way

[jsmith@wstation5 ~]$ mc -F
Root directory: /home/jsmith

[System data]
<skipped>

[User data]
    Config directory: /home/jsmith/.config/mc/
    Data directory:   /home/jsmith/.local/share/mc/
        skins:          /home/jsmith/.local/share/mc/skins/
        extfs.d:        /home/jsmith/.local/share/mc/extfs.d/
        fish:           /home/jsmith/.local/share/mc/fish/
        mcedit macros:  /home/jsmith/.local/share/mc/mc.macros
        mcedit external macros: /home/jsmith/.local/share/mc/mcedit/macros.d/macro.*
    Cache directory:  /home/jsmith/.cache/mc/

and the alternative way:

[jsmith@wstation5 ~]$ MC_HOME=/tmp/MCHOME mc -F
Root directory: /tmp/MCHOME

[System data]
<skipped>    

[User data]
    Config directory: /tmp/MCHOME/.config/mc/
    Data directory:   /tmp/MCHOME/.local/share/mc/
        skins:          /tmp/MCHOME/.local/share/mc/skins/
        extfs.d:        /tmp/MCHOME/.local/share/mc/extfs.d/
        fish:           /tmp/MCHOME/.local/share/mc/fish/
        mcedit macros:  /tmp/MCHOME/.local/share/mc/mc.macros
        mcedit external macros: /tmp/MCHOME/.local/share/mc/mcedit/macros.d/macro.*
    Cache directory:  /tmp/MCHOME/.cache/mc/

Use case of this feature:

You have to share the same user name on remote server (access can be distiguished by rsa keys) and want to use your favorite mc configration w/o overwritting it. Concurrent sessions do not interfere each other.

This works well as a part of sshrc-approach described in https://github.com/Russell91/sshrc