Is it possible to create multiple watchers and store them in an array and then loop that array in a while loop to watch for events?

I can't seem to get that working and I suspect it doesn't work, because FileWatch is a struct?

Perhaps if FileWatch was a class it would work?

Basically what I'm doing now is this: (Minimal example)

I create an array like:

FileWatch[] watchers;

Then I load the watchers from a config file with the paths:

foreach (path; paths)
{
    watchers ~= FileWatch(path, true);
}

And then I do this:

while (true)
{
    foreach (watcher; watchers)
     {
        foreach (event; watcher.getEvents())
        {
            // It never gets anything here ...
        }
    }
}

Maybe I'm using it wrong?

Also I'm on Windows. Could it be a Windows issue?

On inotify it does not report metadata changes, e.g. permissions. Probably should check for IN_ATTRIB too.

    "dependencies": {
        "fswatch": "~>0.6.1"
    "versions": []

dmd --version

DMD64 D Compiler v2.105.3
Copyright (C) 1999-2023 by The D Language Foundation, All Rights Reserved written by Walter Bright

uname -a

Linux i7 6.1.0-13-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.1.55-1 (2023-09-29) x86_64 GNU/Linux

sample code:

void watcher() {
    auto src = FileWatch("src/", true);
    auto views = FileWatch("views/", true);
    auto dub = FileWatch("dub.json", true);
    while (true) {
        Thread.sleep(1111.msecs);
        foreach (e; src.getEvents)
            writeln(e.path, '\t', e.type);
        foreach (e; views.getEvents)
            writeln(e.path, '\t', e.type);
        foreach (e; dub.getEvents)
            writeln(e.path, '\t', e.type);
    }
}

void main(string[] args) {
    writeln(args);
    // autorestart
    spawn(&watcher);

Is it possible to use the comparing functionality of fswatch to get a unique hash and store it somewhere for later comparison? I am trying to see if dlang/dub#2163 can be fixed by running a simple check before rebuilding.

• plus how to increase
• https://github.com/guard/listen/wiki/Increasing-the-amount-of-inotify-watchers

1. Create directory, watch it with my example.
2. Create file in this directory, move it to upper directory. No events reported.
3. Move this file again to observable directory, library will throw

core.exception.AssertError@source/fswatch.d(306): Cookies don't match

Tested on Debian 8.

for OSX

For BSD and OSX

Code like this:

watcher = FileWatch("C:/test/", true); while (1) { foreach (event; watcher.getEvents()) { writeln(event.path); } }

when ran and creating/deleting/modifying files in C:\test\ directory, no paths get written to stdout

How to check if event.path is a file or a directory in an event? isDir and isFile don't work with it.

In my application, I want to check if a file in a directory has changed, but at the same time I get a notification that its directory has changed. I need to get just for the file.

See why D phobos does not use PD: https://dlang.org/faq.html#q5_2
Also see discussion on stackexchange: http://opensource.stackexchange.com/a/1381

With error:
Error: cannot modify struct instance watcher of type FileWatch because it contains const or immutable members

(It´s suppose to be possible?)

I tried out watching a folder named "test" in Windows 10:

import core.thread: Thread, msecs;
import std.stdio;
import fswatch;

void main(string[] args) {
	FileWatch watcher = FileWatch("test", true);
	while(true) {
		writeln(watcher.getEvents());
		Thread.sleep(500.msecs);
	}
}

I noticed that I receive more messages than needed:

// Saving a file in notepad
[]
[FileChangeEvent(modify, "file.txt", "")]
[]
[FileChangeEvent(modify, "file.txt", "")]
[]
[]
// Saving a new file in notepad
[]
[FileChangeEvent(create, "newfile.txt", "")]
[]
[FileChangeEvent(remove, "newfile.txt", ""), FileChangeEvent(create, "newfile.txt", ""), FileChangeEvent(modify, "newfile.txt", ""), FileChangeEvent(modify, "newfile.txt", "")]
[]
// Creating a file using std.file.write
[]
[FileChangeEvent(create, "hey.txt", "")]
[]
[FileChangeEvent(modify, "hey.txt", "")]
[]

Even if I change the sleep time, it's always first an empty event array and then an array with redundant messages. I don't know if this is just how the Windows API works or if some extra modifications are being done under the hood, but it's weird how they show up only after calling getEvents() twice more.

(cf DmitryOlshansky/dinotify#2)

If it is then doesn't there need to be a version with a timeout?

If I have a thread running a watcher and getEvents() blocks, then it is not possible to terminate the thread and so terminate the application.

DInotify added the read(Duration) function to deal with this.

Had to replace:
string fileName = (cast(wchar[])(cast(ubyte*) info.FileName)[0 .. info.FileNameLength]).toUTF8.idup;
with:
wstring wfileName = info.FileName[0 .. info.FileNameLength].idup; string fileName = wfileName.toUTF8.idup;
(BTW Formatting got broken on paste).