feuerlabs / fnotify

File notifications

fnotify

fnotify handles file change notifications. On linux fnotify is implemented with inotify and on mac os x and bsd's kevent is used.

The api is simple

fnotify:watch(Path) -> {ok,Wd} | {error,Reason}
fnotify:watch(Path,[Flag]) -> {ok,Wd} | {error,Reason}

To start watching a path

fnotify:unwatch(Wd) -> ok | {error,Reason}

To stop watching it.

The situation with the events is a bit more tricky, but the events looks like

{fevent,Wd,[Flag],Path,Name}

Simple flags passed to user are

• create
• delete
• moved_from
• moved_to
• {cookie,Cookie}
• attrib

Other flags include

• modify
• access
• close_write
• close_nowrite
• delete_self
• move_self
• open
• write
• extend
• link
• rename
• revoke

Mac OS X

Depending on how many libraries there are, a lot of filedescriptors may be consumed:

The way to add more file descriptors to processes on mac os x is to:

To check maximum possible sysctl kern.maxfilesperproc

To check process limits launchctl limit

To set process limits - works sometimes. launchctl limit maxfiles N N

fnotify's Issues

add MIT or LGPL license

MPL2 license can't be included in Apache abd BSD projects. Due to the nature of an Erlang release I suggest either to replace or maybe just add a license like LGPL or a BSD.