Guard is a command line tool to easly handle events on files modifications.
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FSEvent support on Mac OS X (without RubyCocoa!)
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Inotify support on Linux (beta)
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Super fast change detection
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Automatic files modifications detection (even new files are detected)
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Growl notification (please install growlnotify)
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Libnotify notification
Only Mac OS X (10.5+) & Linux are supported. Tested on Ruby 1.8.7 & 1.9.2dev.
Install the gem:
gem install guard
Add it to your Gemfile (inside test group):
gem 'guard'
Generate an empty Guardfile with:
guard init
Add guard(s) you need (see available guards below)
Just launch Guard inside your ruby/rails project with:
guard
Options list is available with:
guard help
Signal handlers are used to interact with Guard:
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Ctrl-C - Quit Guard (call stop guard(s) method before)
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Ctrl-\ - Call run_all guard(s) method
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Ctrl-Z - Call reload guard(s) method
guard ideas:
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guard-spork
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guard-livereload
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guard-cucumber
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guard-test
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guard-sass
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guard-bundler
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others ideas?
Add it to your Gemfile (inside test group):
gem '<guard-name>'
Add guard definition to your Guardfile with:
guard init <guard-name>
You are good to go!
Create a new guard is very easy, just create a new gem with this basic structure:
- lib/ - guard/ - guard-name/ - templates/ - Guardfile (needed for guard init <guard-name>) - guard-name.rb
lib/guard/guard-name.rb inherit from guard/guard and should overwrite at least one of the five guard methods. Example:
require 'guard' require 'guard/guard' module Guard class GuardName < Guard # ================ # = Guard method = # ================ # Call once when guard starts def start true end # Call with Ctrl-C signal (when Guard quit) def stop true end # Call with Ctrl-Z signal def reload true end # Call with Ctrl-/ signal def run_all true end # Call on file(s) modifications def run_on_change(paths) true end end end
Looks at available guards code for more concrete example.
Guardfile DSL consists of just 2 simple methods: guard & watch. Example:
guard 'rspec', :version => 2 do watch('^spec/(.*)_spec.rb') watch('^lib/(.*)\.rb') { |m| "spec/lib/#{m[1]}_spec.rb" } watch('^spec/spec_helper.rb') { "spec" } watch('^spec/spec_helper.rb') { `say hello` } end
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“guard” method allow to add a guard with an optional options hash
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“watch” method allow to define which files are supervised per this guard. A optional block can be added to overwrite path sending to run_on_change guard method or launch simple command.
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Add more specs, help are welcome because I’m not sure about how to test stuff like this :-)
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Source hosted at GitHub
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Report issues/Questions/Feature requests on GitHub Issues
Pull requests are very welcome! Make sure your patches are well tested. Please create a topic branch for every separate change you make.