# SPOOK: spooky action at a distance!
[](https://crates.io/crates/spook)
A simple command line tool to trigger a command and/or an http [server-sent event](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Server-sent_events/Using_server-sent_events) when files or directories change.
It is well-suited to the live generation and autoreload of HTML documents generated by command-line document processors such as [Pandoc](https://pandoc.org/), [Asciidoctor](https://asciidoctor.org/) & friends.
Think of it as a super-minimalistic version of [Watchman](https://facebook.github.io/watchman/) with server events signalling on top, or as a super-stripped-down version of [LiveReload](http://livereload.com/) with a simple, standard signaling protocol.
## Example use
In the simplest case, `spook` takes as arguments the files to be watched and the command to be triggered (with its own arguments, if any).
The following would for instance re-generate an html document with Pandoc each time the input files `mydoc1.md` or `mydoc2.md` change:
```
$ spook mydoc1.md mydoc2.md -- pandoc -o mydoc.html mydoc1.md mydoc2.md
```
The browser can also refresh HTML pages automatically by embedding a small javascript snippet (see the `scripts` directory) in the HTML and by enabling server-sent events with the `--signal` option, like so:
```
$ spook --signal mydoc1.md mydoc2.md -- pandoc -A spook_refresh_script.html -o mydoc.html mydoc1.md mydoc2.md
```
Autoreload works both with files opened directly in the browser and with files served by a local server (e.g. Python's `SimpleHTTPServer`).
## More options
A handful of other options can be specified, e.g. to serve events from a different port, perform a preemptive trigger at launch, etc...
To see all available options, type:
```
$ spook --help
```
## Platforms
This software is most definitely of the no-warranty, provided-as-is, mainly-tested-on-my-linux-box kind. But it *should* work on Linux/Mac/Windows, and with some luck on a couple of other OSes.
Server-sent events are supported out-of-the-box by all decent browsers. That means, if you insist on using Explorer or Edge you will have to got through some hoops and play with one of the freely available polyfills for the javascript `EventSource` interface.
## Installation
The rust toolchain must be installed on your system. No panic, installing rust is a smooth ride: just let [rustup](https://rustup.rs/) guide you.
Once this is done, install `spook` with `cargo`:
```
$ cargo install spook
```
That's it.
## License
This software is licensed under the [Apache License, Version 2.0](LICENSE-APACHE) or the [MIT license](LICENSE-MIT), at your option.
Copyright (c) 2019 Serge Barral.