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dirmonitor

Functionality that allows to monitor a directory or file for changes using the native facilities provided by the current operating system for better efficiency and performance.

new​

function dirmonitor.new()
  -> dirmonitor

Creates a new dirmonitor object.

check​

(method) dirmonitor:check(callback: fun(fd_or_path: string|integer), error_callback: fun(error: any):nil)
  -> changes: boolean?

Verify if the resources registered for monitoring have changed, should be called periodically to check for changes.

The callback will be called for each file or directory that was: edited, removed or added. A file descriptor will be passed to the callback in "multiple" mode or a path in "single" mode.

If an error occurred during the callback execution, the error callback will be called with the error object. This callback should not manipulate coroutines to avoid deadlocks.

@return changes — True when changes were detected.

mode​

(method) dirmonitor:mode()
  -> "multiple"|"single"

Get the working mode for the current file system monitoring backend.

"multiple": various file descriptors are needed to recursively monitor a directory contents, backends: inotify and kqueue.

"single": a single process takes care of monitoring a path recursively so no individual file descriptors are used, backends: win32 and fsevents.

return #1:
    | "single"
    | "multiple"

unwatch​

(method) dirmonitor:unwatch(fd_or_path: string|integer)

Stops monitoring a file descriptor in "multiple" mode or in "single" mode a directory path.

@param fd_or_path — A file descriptor or path.

watch​

(method) dirmonitor:watch(path: string)
  -> fd: integer

Monitors a directory or file for changes.

In "multiple" mode you will need to call this method more than once to recursively monitor directories and files.

In "single" mode you will only need to call this method for the parent directory and every sub directory and files will get automatically monitored.

@return fd — The file descriptor id assigned to the monitored path when

the mode is "multiple", in "single" mode: 1 for success or -1 on failure.