🗂️ DirTracker

Author: PythonHubStudio / Oleksandr Tukas
Language: Python 3.11+
License: MIT

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📖 Description

DirTracker — This tool creates a "snapshot" of a directory (its full tree structure). It detects any file changes since the last check, including:

• 🟢 files that were added;
• 🔴 files that were removed;
• 🟡 files whose contents have changed, even by one byte.

For each directory you monitor, a snapshot file (.snapshot.pkl) is created in the directory itself.

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Note! The first run only does a check (first snapshot), like init.

🧩 Output Example

With full absolute paths (if os.walk() was run from an absolute path):

[+] New file: /home/user/course/app.py
[-] Removed file: /home/user/Documents/passport.pdf
[~] Changed file: /home/user/Documents/contacts.xlsx

Or with relative paths (if os.walk() was run from "."):

[+] New file: ./course/app.py
[-] Removed file: ./Documents/passport.pdf
[~] Changed file: ./Documents/contacts.xlsx

💡 If redirect stdout, ANSI colors will be off.

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⚙️ Usage

python dtr.py [-h] [path]

Arguments:

• path — the path to the directory you want to monitor, if not passed it uses CWD
• -h — see help

Examples:

python dtr.py

python dtr.py /home/user/Documents

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File with settings and ignored names of dirs and files in ./settings, see them.

🪟 Windows Notes

On Windows, ANSI colors are supported automatically (without using colorama).

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🎓 Educational Use

Используется как образовательный пример в моем курсе: Used as an educational example in my course: 👉 Python Full Course on Udemy

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📦 Repository Structure (simplified)

DirTracker/
├── dtr.py            # Entry point (CLI)
├── core/
│   ├── dirtracker.py
│   ├── ansi/
│   │   ├── fix.py          # Enables ANSI colors on Windows
│   │   └── colorize.py     # Cross-platform color formatting
│   └── settings/
│       ├── conf_reader.py        # Read the config file
│       └── excludes_reader.py    # Read the excludes names.
└── settings/
    ├── config.conf
    ├── excludes_dirs.conf
    └── excludes_files.conf

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🧠 Key Features

• Detects added, removed, and changed files
• Stores snapshot in .snapshot.pkl
• Automatically disables colors for redirected output
• Works cross-platform (Linux, macOS, Windows)
• Simple CLI interface using argparse

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🧾 License

This project is distributed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.