watchr
Better file system watching for Node.js
Install
- Install:
npm install --save watchr
- Executable:
watchr
- Module:
require('watchr')
This package is published with the following editions:
watchr/src/lib/getmac.coffee
is Source + CoffeeScript + Requirewatchr/es5/lib/getmac.js
is CoffeeScript Compiled JavaScript + ES5 + Require
Watchr provides a normalised API the file watching APIs of different node versions, nested/recursive file and directory watching, and accurate detailed events for file/directory creations, updates, and deletions.
You install it via npm install watchr
and use it via require('watchr').watch(config)
. Available configuration options are:
path
a single path to watchpaths
an array of paths to watchlistener
a single change listener to fire when a change occurslisteners
an array of listeners to fire when a change occurs, overloaded to accept the following values:
changeListener
a single change listener[changeListener]
an array of change listeners{eventName: eventListener}
an object keyed with the event names and valued with a single event listener{eventName: [eventListener]}
an object keyed with the event names and valued with an array of event listeners
next
(optional, defaults to null
) a completion callback to fire once the watchers have been setup, arguments are:
- when using the
path
configuration option: err, watcherInstance
- when using the
paths
configuration option: err, [watcherInstance,...]
stat
(optional, defaults to null
) a file stat object to use for the path, instead of fetching a new oneinterval
(optional, defaults to 5007
) for systems that poll to detect file changes, how often should it poll in millsecondspersistent
(optional, defaults to true
) whether or not we should keep the node process alive for as long as files are still being watchedcatchupDelay
(optional, defaults to 2000
) because swap files delete the original file, then rename a temporary file over-top of the original file, to ensure the change is reported correctly we must have a delay in place that waits until all change events for that file have finished, before starting the detection of what changedpreferredMethods
(optional, defaults to ['watch','watchFile']
) which order should we prefer our watching methods to be tried?followLinks
(optional, defaults to true
) follow symlinks, i.e. use stat rather than lstatignorePaths
(optional, defaults to false
) an array of full paths to ignoreignoreHiddenFiles
(optional, defaults to false
) whether or not to ignored files which filename starts with a .
ignoreCommonPatterns
(optional, defaults to true
) whether or not to ignore common undesirable file patterns (e.g. .svn
, .git
, .DS_Store
, thumbs.db
, etc)ignoreCustomPatterns
(optional, defaults to null
) any custom ignore patterns that you would also like to ignore along with the common patterns
The following events are available to your via the listeners:
log
for debugging, receives the arguments logLevel ,args...
error
for gracefully listening to error events, receives the arguments err
- you should always have an error listener, otherwise node.js's behavior is to throw the error and possibly crash your application, see #40
watching
for when watching of the path has completed, receives the arguments err, isWatching
change
for listening to change events, receives the arguments changeType, fullPath, currentStat, previousStat
, received arguments will be:
- for updated files:
'update', fullPath, currentStat, previousStat
- for created files:
'create', fullPath, currentStat, null
- for deleted files:
'delete', fullPath, null, previousStat
To wrap it all together, it would look like this:
var watchr = require('watchr')
console.log('Watch our paths')
watchr.watch({
paths: ['path1', 'path2', 'path3'],
listeners: {
log: function (logLevel) {
console.log('a log message occured:', arguments)
},
error: function (err) {
console.log('an error occured:', err)
},
watching: function (err, watcherInstance, isWatching){
if (err) {
console.log("watching the path " + watcherInstance.path + " failed with error", err)
} else {
console.log("watching the path " + watcherInstance.path + " completed")
}
},
change: function(changeType, filePath, fileCurrentStat, filePreviousStat){
console.log('a change event occured:', arguments)
}
},
next: function(err, watchers){
if (err) {
return console.log("watching everything failed with error", err)
} else {
console.log('watching everything completed', watchers)
}
setTimeout(function () {
console.log('Stop watching our paths')
for ( var i = 0; i < watchers.length; i++ ) {
watchers[i].close()
}
}, 60 * 1000)
}
})
You can test the above code snippet by running the following:
npm install -g watchr
watchr
History
Discover the release history by heading on over to the HISTORY.md
file.
Contribute
Discover how you can contribute by heading on over to the CONTRIBUTING.md
file.
Backers
Maintainers
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Contributors
These amazing people have contributed code to this project:
Discover how you can contribute by heading on over to the CONTRIBUTING.md
file.
License
Unless stated otherwise all works are:
and licensed under: