Monitor Directory modification

needperlhelp has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Do we have a proactive way to check if a directory is modified or not. do we have select / poll like command which unblocks on directory getting modified. Suggestions welcomed.

Comment on Monitor Directory modification

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Re: Monitor Directory modification by Rossco (Initiate) on Nov 12, 2006 at 20:17 UTC
Hi Perhaps taking a look at the following modules may help: Win32::ChangeNotify - Monitor events related to files and directories POE::Component::DirWatch - POE directory watcher If neither does exactly what you want taking a look at the code in the poe module and "File::Compare - Compare files or filehandles" might give you inspiration. Cheers Rossco	[reply]
Re: Monitor Directory modification by ambrus (Abbot) on Nov 12, 2006 at 17:03 UTC
Linux has an api for this. It's the F_NOTIFY fcntl. Read the fcntl(2) manpage for details.	[reply]
Re: Monitor Directory modification by aufflick (Deacon) on Nov 13, 2006 at 01:21 UTC
The most efficient way I am aware of to do this is using the `fam` daemon/api from SGI (and that is shipped by default on a number of Linux distros these days). See SGI::FAM and http://oss.sgi.com/projects/fam/	[reply]
Re: Monitor Directory modification by ides (Deacon) on Nov 12, 2006 at 16:55 UTC
None that I'm aware of. Best way to do this is to have whatever is modifying the directory ( adding files, editing files, etc ) drop a empty file of a specific name, launch a script, or some other marker when it has modified something. Second best option, is to just manually, using either cron or a long running process with some sleep() intervals, look for changes in the files. Hope that helps. Frank Wiles <frank@revsys.com> www.revsys.com	[reply]

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