Better file system watching for Node.js
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.
npm install --save watchrrequire('watchr')This package is published with the following editions:
watchr aliases watchr/source/index.jswatchr/source/index.js is esnext source code with require for modulesEnvironments older than Node.js v8 may need Babel's Polyfill or something similar.
This project provides its type information via inline JSDoc Comments. To make use of this in TypeScript, set your maxNodeModuleJsDepth compiler option to 5 or thereabouts. You can accomlish this via your tsconfig.json file like so:
{
"compilerOptions": {
"maxNodeModuleJsDepth": 5
}
}
There are two concepts in watchr, they are:
The simplest usage is:
// Import the watching library
var watchr = require('watchr')
// Define our watching parameters
var path = process.cwd()
function listener (changeType, fullPath, currentStat, previousStat) {
switch ( changeType ) {
case 'update':
console.log('the file', fullPath, 'was updated', currentStat, previousStat)
break
case 'create':
console.log('the file', fullPath, 'was created', currentStat)
break
case 'delete':
console.log('the file', fullPath, 'was deleted', previousStat)
break
}
}
function next (err) {
if ( err ) return console.log('watch failed on', path, 'with error', err)
console.log('watch successful on', path)
}
// Watch the path with the change listener and completion callback
var stalker = watchr.open(path, listener, next)
// Close the stalker of the watcher
stalker.close()
More advanced usage is:
// Create the stalker for the path
var stalker = watchr.create(path)
// Listen to the events for the stalker/watcher
stalker.on('change', listener)
stalker.on('log', console.log)
stalker.once('close', function (reason) {
console.log('closed', path, 'because', reason)
stalker.removeAllListeners() // as it is closed, no need for our change or log listeners any more
})
// Set the default configuration for the stalker/watcher
stalker.setConfig({
stat: null,
interval: 5007,
persistent: true,
catchupDelay: 2000,
preferredMethods: ['watch', 'watchFile'],
followLinks: true,
ignorePaths: false,
ignoreHiddenFiles: false,
ignoreCommonPatterns: true,
ignoreCustomPatterns: null
})
// Start watching
stalker.watch(next)
// Stop watching
stalker.close()
Discover the release history by heading on over to the HISTORY.md file.
Discover how you can contribute by heading on over to the CONTRIBUTING.md file.
These amazing people are maintaining this project:
No sponsors yet! Will you be the first?
These amazing people have contributed code to this project:
Discover how you can contribute by heading on over to the CONTRIBUTING.md file.
Unless stated otherwise all works are:
and licensed under:
FAQs
Better file system watching for Node.js
We found that watchr demonstrated a not healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released a year ago. It has 2 open source maintainers collaborating on the project.
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