Package Exports

watchr

This package does not declare an exports field, so the exports above have been automatically detected and optimized by JSPM instead. If any package subpath is missing, it is recommended to post an issue to the original package (watchr) to support the "exports" field. If that is not possible, create a JSPM override to customize the exports field for this package.

Readme

watchr

Better file system watching for Node.js

Install

NPM

Install: npm install --save watchr
Executable: watchr
Module: require('watchr')

Editions

This package is published with the following editions:

watchr/src/lib/getmac.coffee is Source + CoffeeScript + Require
watchr/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 watch
paths an array of paths to watch
listener a single change listener to fire when a change occurs
listeners 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 one
interval (optional, defaults to 5007) for systems that poll to detect file changes, how often should it poll in millseconds
persistent (optional, defaults to true) whether or not we should keep the node process alive for as long as files are still being watched
catchupDelay (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 changed
preferredMethods (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 lstat
ignorePaths (optional, defaults to false) an array of full paths to ignore
ignoreHiddenFiles (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:

// Require
var watchr = require('watchr')

// Watch a directory or file
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)
        }

        // Close watchers after 60 seconds
        setTimeout(function () {
            console.log('Stop watching our paths')
            for ( var i = 0; i < watchers.length; i++ ) {
                watchers[i].close()
            }
        }, 60 * 1000)
    }
})