Notify

(Windows) (Linux and OS X)

Cross-platform filesystem notification library for Rust.

Install

[dependencies]
notify = "^2.6.1"

Usage

extern crate notify;
use std::sync::mpsc::Receiver;
use std::sync::mpsc::sync_channel;
use std::thread;
use notify::{RecommendedWatcher, Watcher};
use std::sync::mpsc::channel;

fn watch() -> notify::Result<()> {
  // Create a channel to receive the events.
  let (tx, rx) = channel();

  // Automatically select the best implementation for your platform.
  // You can also access each implementation directly e.g. INotifyWatcher.
  let mut watcher: RecommendedWatcher = try!(Watcher::new(tx));

  // Add a path to be watched. All files and directories at that path and
  // below will be monitored for changes.
  try!(watcher.watch("/home/test/notify"));
  
  // This is a simple loop, but you may want to use more complex logic here,
  // for example to handle I/O.
  loop {
      match rx.recv() {
        Ok(notify::Event{ path: Some(path),op:Ok(op) }) => {
            println!("{:?} {:?}", op, path);
        },
        Err(e) => println!("watch error {}", e),
        _ => ()
      }
  }
}

fn main() {
  if let Err(err) = watch() {
    println!("Error! {:?}", err)
  }
}

Platforms

• Linux / Android: inotify
• OS X: FSEvent
• Windows: ReadDirectoryChangesW
• All platforms: polling

Limitations

FSEvent

Due to the inner security model of FSEvent (see FileSystemEventSecurity), some event cannot be observed easily when trying to follow files that do not belong to you. In this case, reverting to the pollwatcher can fix the issue, with a slight performance cost.

Todo

• BSD / OS X / iOS: kqueue
• Solaris 11: FEN

Pull requests and bug reports happily accepted!

Origins

Inspired by Go's fsnotify, born out of need for cargo watch, and general frustration at the non-existence of C/Rust cross-platform notify libraries.

Written by Félix Saparelli and awesome contributors, and released in the Public Domain using the Creative Commons Zero Declaration.