Ruby File Monitor

Ruby File Monitor is a easy way to watch the directories and files, execute commands when them changed. Use for situation like Auto refresh webpage, Auto execute unit tests, Auto compile CoffeeScript, Haml and so on. It's base on rb-inotify, So it only works in inotify supported system such as Linux.

Requirements

Ruby >= 1.8.7

Linux Kernel >= 2.6.13

Features

1. Auto watching recursively:

   If make a new directory in the watched directory, the new directory will be watched automatically.

2. Support Filter:

   Support filter directories or files.

3. Events Buffer Mechanism:

   To avoid run the check methods too quickly, for example, when delete 20 files at the same time, if without Events Buffer will run the check methods 20 times. the frequency of file-monitor is 0.2 second

4. High Performance

   For Ruby File Monitor use inotify library, so it's very fast, even watching thousands of directories.

Installation

Install from source

git clone https://github.com/jiangmiao/ruby-file-monitor
cd ruby-file-monitor
gem build file-monitor.gemspec
gem install --local --user-install file-monitor-0.1.3.gem 

Install from gem server

gem install file-monitor

Usage

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
# coding: utf-8
# File: examples/use-creator.rb

require 'rubygems'

lib_dir = File.join File.dirname(__FILE__), '../lib'
$:.unshift lib_dir unless $:.include? lib_dir

require 'file-monitor'

dir = ARGV[0] || '.'

# watch current working directory
FileMonitor.watch dir do

  # set frequency 0.2 second (optional default is 0.2)
  # frequency 0.2

  # do not follow the symlink (optional default is false)
  # follow_symlink false


  # do not watch directory contains git and svn
  # the last character '/' has been trimmed
  dirs {
    disallow /git$|svn$/
  }

  # record ruby files only
  # it equals files /\.rb$/
  files {
    disallow /.*/
    allow /\.rb$/
  }

  # The commands will be runned when file changed
  # the events contains all file modified infomation in last 0.2 second
  exec {|events|
    puts events.size()
    puts "do something"
  }
end

Simple

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
# coding: utf-8
# File: examples/simple.rb
require 'rubygems'
require 'file-monitor'

FileMonitor.watch '.' do
    # missing 'dirs' file-monitor will watch all sub directories

    # only record ruby file
    files /\.rb$/
    exec {
        system('rake test')
    }
end

Examples

Auto F5

Auto F5 will auto refresh the webpage in browser when any watched files changed. It's simple but very useful.

f5.rb requires sinatra.

Limitation:

1. The watched page MUST have </body> tag. 
   f5.rb will insert script  before </body> to refresh the page 
   when physical file changed.

2. Only support GET requests.

Usage

Environment:
the website physical path is /var/www/foo
the host is www.foo.com
homepage is www.foo.com/index.html

start watching the directory
ruby examples/f5.rb /var/www/foo

open www.foo.com:4567/index.html in browser
you will see the page same as www.foo.com/index.html
do some changes on /var/www/foo/index.html then save the file.
or create or modify any file in /var/www/foo
www.foo.com/index.html will refresh automatically.

examples/use-block.rb

$ ruby examples/use-block.rb 
watching .
watching ./lib
ignore ./.git
watching ./examples

Edit and save README.md by gvim, examples/use-block outputs

+  ./4913
-  ./4913
-  ./README.md
+  ./README.md
#  ./README.md
5 events
do something

File Monitor Cli

$ watch.rb

Usage: watch.rb [options] [directory]

  -d, --dir     the directory regexp to watch
  -e, --exec    the command will be execuate
  -f, --file    the file regexp to watch
  -h, --help    display this help message

Example:

  Watch current working dir and  sub directory lib and src, 
  if any ruby file(match \.rb$) changes
  then execute 'ls' command

    watch.rb -d 'lib$' -d 'src$' -f '\.rb$' -e 'ls'