Cross-platform filesystem notification library for Rust.
(Looking for desktop notifications instead? Have a look at [notify-rust] or [alert-after]!)
As used by: [alacritty], [cargo watch], [cobalt], [docket], [handlebars-iron], [mdBook], [pax], [rdiff], [timetrack], [watchexec], and others. (Want to be added to this list? Open a pull request!)
toml
[dependencies]
notify = "4.0.0"
```rust extern crate notify;
use notify::{RecommendedWatcher, Watcher, RecursiveMode}; use std::sync::mpsc::channel; use std::time::Duration;
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, Duration::from_secs(2)));
// 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", RecursiveMode::Recursive));
// 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(event) => println!("{:?}", event),
Err(e) => println!("watch error: {:?}", e),
}
}
}
fn main() { if let Err(e) = watch() { println!("error: {:?}", e) } } ```
Looking overly verbose? Too much boilerplate? Have a look at [hotwatch], a friendly wrapper:
```rust // Taken from the hotwatch readme use hotwatch::{Hotwatch, Event};
let mut hotwatch = Hotwatch::new().expect("Hotwatch failed to initialize."); hotwatch.watch("war.png", |event: Event| { if let Event::Write(path) = event { println!("War has changed."); } }).expect("Failed to watch file!"); ```
Due to the inner security model of FSEvents (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.
Version 4 is not frozen! I'm just not actively spending time on it.
I do accept pull requests for fixes and features, and would even consider breaking changes with enough justification. Do contribute, please!
(Originally I thought that Version 5 would take less time to get out, but it has now been clear for a while that the finish line is quite far away still. I'm still at it, but expect nothing soon.)
Inspired by Go's [fsnotify] and Node.js's [Chokidar], 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.
Note that licensing will change from version 5 to Artistic 2.0.