Guard is a command line tool to easily handle events on file modifications.
If you have any questions please join us on our Google group or on #guard (irc.freenode.net).
- FSEvent support on Mac OS X 10.5+ (without RubyCocoa!, rb-fsevent gem, >= 0.3.5 required).
- Inotify support on Linux (rb-inotify gem, >= 0.5.1 required).
- Directory Change Notification support on Windows (rb-fchange, >= 0.0.2 required).
- Polling on the other operating systems (help us to support more OS).
- Automatic & Super fast (when polling is not used) file modifications detection (even new files are detected).
- Visual notifications on Mac OSX (Growl), Linux (Libnotify) and Windows (Notifu).
- Tested against Ruby 1.8.7, 1.9.2, REE and the latest versions of JRuby & Rubinius.
Ryan Bates made a Railscast on Guard, you can view it here: http://railscasts.com/episodes/264-guard
Add Guard to your Gemfile:
group :development do
gem 'guard'
gem 'rb-inotify', :require => false
gem 'rb-fsevent', :require => false
gem 'rb-fchange', :require => false
end
and install it via Bundler:
$ bundle
Generate an empty Guardfile with:
$ guard init
You may optionally place a .Guardfile in your home directory to use it across multiple projects.
Also note that if a .guard.rb is found in your home directory, it will be appended to the Guardfile.
Add the guards you need to your Guardfile (see the existing guards below).
Now, be sure to read the particular instructions for your operating system: Mac OS X | Linux | Windows
Install the rb-fsevent gem for FSEvent support:
$ gem install rb-fsevent
You have three possibilities for getting Growl support:
Use the growl_notify gem:
$ gem install growl_notify
The growl_notify gem is compatible with Growl >= 1.3 and uses AppleScript to send Growl notifications.
The gem needs a native C extension to make use of AppleScript and does not run on JRuby and MacRuby.
Use the ruby_gntp gem:
$ gem install ruby_gntp
The ruby_gntp gem is compatible with Growl >= 1.3 and uses the Growl Notification Transport Protocol to send Growl
notifications. Guard supports multiple notification channels for customizing each notification type, but it's limited
to the local host currently.
Use the growl gem:
$ gem install growl
The growl gem is compatible with all versions of Growl and uses a command line tool growlnotify
that must be separately downloaded and installed. You can also install it with HomeBrew:
$ brew install growlnotify
Finally you have to add your Growl library of choice to your Gemfile:
gem 'rb-fsevent'
gem 'growl_notify' # or gem 'ruby_gntp' or gem 'growl'
Have a look at the Guard Wiki for more information.
Install the rb-inotify gem for inotify support:
$ gem install rb-inotify
Install the libnotify gem if you want visual notification support:
$ gem install libnotify
And add them to your Gemfile:
gem 'rb-inotify'
gem 'libnotify'
Install the rb-fchange gem for Directory Change Notification support:
$ gem install rb-fchange
Install the win32console gem if you want colors in your terminal:
$ gem install win32console
Install the rb-notifu gem if you want visual notification support:
$ gem install rb-notifu
And add them to your Gemfile:
gem 'rb-fchange'
gem 'rb-notifu'
gem 'win32console'
Just launch Guard inside your Ruby / Rails project with:
$ guard [start]
or if you use Bundler, to run the Guard executable specific to your bundle:
$ bundle exec guard [start]
Guard will look for a Guardfile in your current directory. If it does not find one, it will look in your $HOME directory for a .Guardfile.
Shell can be cleared after each change:
$ guard --clear
$ guard -c # shortcut
Notifications (growl/libnotify) can be disabled:
$ guard --notify false
$ guard -n f # shortcut
Notifications can also be disabled globally by setting a GUARD_NOTIFY environment variable to false
Only certain guards groups can be run (see the Guardfile DSL below for creating groups):
$ guard --group group_name another_group_name
$ guard -g group_name another_group_name # shortcut
Guard can be run in debug mode:
$ guard --debug
$ guard -d # shortcut
Guard can watch in any directory (instead of the current directory):
$ guard --watchdir ~/your/fancy/project
$ guard -w ~/your/fancy/project # shortcut
Guard can use a Guardfile not located in the current directory:
$ guard --guardfile ~/.your_global_guardfile
$ guard -G ~/.your_global_guardfile # shortcut
Guard can optionally watch all file modifications like moves or deletions with:
$ guard start -A
$ guard start --watch-all-modifications
Turn off completely any Guard terminal interactions with:
$ guard start -i
$ guard start --no-interactions
An exhaustive list of options is available with:
$ guard help [TASK]
From version >= 0.7.0 Posix Signal handlers are no more used to interact with Guard. If you're using a version < 0.7, please refer to the README in the v0.6 branch.
When Guard do nothing you can interact with by entering a command + hitting return/enter:
stop:stop|quit|exit|s|q|e + return- Calls each guard's#stopmethod, in the same order they are declared in the Guardfile, and then quits Guard itself.reload:reload|r|z + return- Calls each guard's#reloadmethod, in the same order they are declared in the Guardfile.pause:pause|p + return- Toggle file modification listening. Useful when switching git branches.run_all:just return (no commands)- Calls each guard's#run_allmethod, in the same order they are declared in the Guardfile.
reload and run_all actions can be scoped to only run on a certain guard or group. Examples:
backend reload + return- Call only each guard's#reloadmethod on backend group.rspec + return- Call only rspec guard's#run_allmethod.
A list of the available guards is present in the wiki.
Add it to your Gemfile (inside the development group):
gem '<guard-name>'
You can list all guards installed on your system with:
$ guard list
Insert default guard's definition to your Guardfile by running this command:
$ guard init <guard-name>
You are good to go, or you can modify your guards' definition to suit your needs.
The Guardfile DSL consists of the following methods:
#guard- Allows you to add a guard with an optional hash of options.#watch- Allows you to define which files are supervised by a guard. An optional block can be added to overwrite the paths sent to the guard's#run_on_changemethod or to launch any arbitrary command.#group- Allows you to group several guards together. Groups to be run can be specified with the Guard DSL option--group(or-g). This comes in handy especially when you have a huge Guardfile and want to focus your development on a certain part. Guards that don't belong to a group are considered global and are always run.#callback- Allows you to execute arbitrary code before or after any of thestart,stop,reload,run_allandrun_on_changeguards' method. You can even insert more hooks inside these methods. Please checkout the Wiki page for more details.#ignore_paths- Allows you to ignore top level directories altogether. This comes is handy when you have large amounts of non-source data in you project. By default .bundle, .git, log, tmp, and vendor are ignored. Currently it is only possible to ignore the immediate descendants of the watched directory.
Example:
ignore_paths 'foo', 'bar'
group 'backend' do
guard 'bundler' do
watch('Gemfile')
end
guard 'rspec', :cli => '--color --format doc' do
# Regexp watch patterns are matched with Regexp#match
watch(%r{^spec/.+_spec\.rb$})
watch(%r{^lib/(.+)\.rb$}) { |m| "spec/lib/#{m[1]}_spec.rb" }
watch(%r{^spec/models/.+\.rb$}) { ["spec/models", "spec/acceptance"] }
watch(%r{^spec/.+\.rb$}) { `say hello` }
# String watch patterns are matched with simple '=='
watch('spec/spec_helper.rb') { "spec" }
end
end
group 'frontend' do
guard 'coffeescript', :output => 'public/javascripts/compiled' do
watch(%r{^app/coffeescripts/.+\.coffee$})
end
guard 'livereload' do
watch(%r{^app/.+\.(erb|haml)$})
end
end
The Guardfile DSL can also be used in a programmatic fashion by calling directly Guard::Dsl.evaluate_guardfile.
Available options are as follow:
:guardfile- The path to a valid Guardfile.:guardfile_contents- A string representing the content of a valid Guardfile
Remember, without any options given, Guard will look for a Guardfile in your current directory and if it does not find one, it will look for it in your $HOME directory.
For instance, you could use it as follow:
gem 'guard'
require 'guard'
Guard.setup
Guard::Dsl.evaluate_guardfile(:guardfile => '/your/custom/path/to/a/valid/Guardfile')
# or
Guard::Dsl.evaluate_guardfile(:guardfile_contents => "
guard 'rspec' do
watch(%r{^spec/.+_spec\.rb$})
end
")
Guard.start
You can list the defined groups and guards for the current Guardfile from the command line using guard show or guard -T:
$ guard -T
(global):
shell
Group backend:
bundler
rspec: cli => "--color --format doc"
Group frontend:
coffeescript: output => "public/javascripts/compiled"
livereload
If a .guard.rb is found in your home directory, it will be appended to
the Guardfile. This can be used for tasks you want guard to handle but
other users probably don't. For example, indexing your source tree with
Ctags:
guard 'shell' do
watch(%r{^(?:app|lib)/.+\.rb$}) { `ctags -R` }
end
Creating a new guard is very easy, just create a new gem (bundle gem if you use Bundler) with this basic structure:
.travis.yml # bonus point!
CHANGELOG.md # bonus point!
Gemfile
guard-name.gemspec
Guardfile
lib/
guard/
guard-name/
templates/
Guardfile # needed for `guard init <guard-name>`
version.rb
guard-name.rb
test/ # or spec/
README.md
Guard::GuardName (in lib/guard/guard-name.rb) must inherit from
Guard::Guard and should overwrite at least one of
the basic Guard::Guard task methods.
Here is an example scaffold for lib/guard/guard-name.rb:
require 'guard'
require 'guard/guard'
module Guard
class GuardName < Guard
# Initialize a Guard.
# @param [Array<Guard::Watcher>] watchers the Guard file watchers
# @param [Hash] options the custom Guard options
def initialize(watchers = [], options = {})
super
end
# Call once when Guard starts. Please override initialize method to init stuff.
# @raise [:task_has_failed] when start has failed
def start
end
# Called when `stop|quit|exit|s|q|e + enter` is pressed (when Guard quits).
# @raise [:task_has_failed] when stop has failed
def stop
end
# Called when `reload|r|z + enter` is pressed.
# This method should be mainly used for "reload" (really!) actions like reloading passenger/spork/bundler/...
# @raise [:task_has_failed] when reload has failed
def reload
end
# Called when just `enter` is pressed
# This method should be principally used for long action like running all specs/tests/...
# @raise [:task_has_failed] when run_all has failed
def run_all
end
# Called on file(s) modifications that the Guard watches.
# @param [Array<String>] paths the changes files or paths
# @raise [:task_has_failed] when run_on_change has failed
def run_on_change(paths)
end
# Called on file(s) deletions that the Guard watches.
# @param [Array<String>] paths the deleted files or paths
# @raise [:task_has_failed] when run_on_change has failed
def run_on_deletion(paths)
end
end
end
Please take a look at the existing guards' source code for more concrete example and inspiration.
Alternatively, a new guard can be added inline to a Guardfile with this basic structure:
require 'guard/guard'
module ::Guard
class InlineGuard < ::Guard::Guard
def run_all
end
def run_on_change(paths)
end
end
end
Here is a very cool example by @avdi : http://avdi.org/devblog/2011/06/15/a-guardfile-for-redis
- Documentation hosted at RubyDoc.
- Source hosted at GitHub.
- Report issues and feature requests to GitHub Issues.
Pull requests are very welcome! Please try to follow these simple "rules", though:
- Please create a topic branch for every separate change you make;
- Make sure your patches are well tested;
- Update the README (if applicable);
- Update the CHANGELOG (maybe not for a typo but don't hesitate!);
- Please do not change the version number.
For questions please join us on our Google group or on #guard (irc.freenode.net).