Find out where configuration changes are stored

Whenever I set up a computer, I start konsole and change its settings. I choose Settings -> Configure Current Profile -> Tabs -> "Show 'New Tab' and 'Close Tab' buttons in tab bar. Today I wanted to write a script to do this configuration change for me. The most important question is - where is this setting being saved?

I could find this out using the command

strace -ffe open konsole

strace is a cool command that shows you every syscall invoked by a program (in the above case konsole). When called with the -e open argument, it will only show the open syscalls. This gives you a powerful tool into your hands: A monitor which files are read and/or modified by a program. The output will read like this:

[pid 29951] open("/etc/localtime", O_RDONLY) = 3
[pid 29951] open("/etc/kde4rc", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = 3
[pid 29951] open("/root/.kde4/share/config/kdeglobals", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = 3

The -ff argument is needed so strace still follows spawning processes; for more information, read strace's man page.