generic solution for file changes => reload

[PhilWaldmann]

Hi,

currently AH reloads itself if any action, task or initializer file was changed.
Are there any plans to support other files as well? e.g. model definition files for an ORM?

There are generic solutions e.g. nodemon for server reloading. What was the reason to reimplement it into actionhero?

[evantahler]

As you mention, nodemon (and others) are a great tool to restart your application upon changes, and you can use it with actionhero if you want nodemon ./node_modules/.bin/actionhero start

actionhero's development mode is a little different, in that it tries hard not to restart the server process. Changes to routes, tasks, and actions can simply replace those in memory when they are updated on disk. Other changes, like changes to config.js or initializers are more severe, and will restart the whole application (much like nodemon).

Being that actionhero supports persistent connections, it is important to not disconnect the clients whenever possible (which is very likley to happen if the server was to restart).

[evantahler]

If you are looking for a generic way within actionhero to watch for a file and reload, you can do that like this:

api.watchFileAndAct(path_to_file, function(){
  api.log(rebooting due to config change: ' + path_to_file, 'info');
  delete require.cache[require.resolve(path_to_file)];
  api.commands.restart.call(api._self);
});

[evantahler]

some updates: evantahler@ec9d61f

and a wiki entry: evantahler@74ac033

[PhilWaldmann]

Thank you very much for this detailed answer!

Keep up the great work