Often, when I modify files in a directory, I want some action to happen afterwards. For example: If I’m editing some source code locally, I might want it to be rsynced to a remote server. Or maybe I want to regenerate CSS after changing some LESS or SASS, or minify some JavaScript after changing the uncompressed source. Sometimes, there’s an application-specific solution to this problem. Sometimes, there isn’t. In the latter case, it would be nice to fall back on a general purpose tool.

On Linux, this is a solved problem. Just install inotify-tools and wrap it with a couple of scripts. Sadly, each operating system has its own unique API for monitoring filesystem changes. That means Windows and Mac users are out of luck.

fsevents-tools is my attempt to solve this problem for OS X. As the name implies, it uses OS X’s FSEvents API to monitor filesystem changes. The first release (v1.0) consists of three commands:

notifywait

notifywait is a simple tool that the other utilities depend on. It does one thing: Given path(s) to watch, it waits until something in them changes and exits. For example, if you have public file sharing enabled and you’re expecting an incoming file, run:

% notifywait ~/Public/Drop\ Box && say "Dropbox changed"

The output will be something like…

Path is /Users/ggreer/Public/Drop Box
Watching /Users/ggreer/Public/Drop Box
Change 18158642688910021128 in /Users/ggreer/Public/Drop Box/untitled folder, flags 131328 - matched directory, notifying

…followed by your computer talking. Note: notifywait will also exit if a file or directory is moved or deleted. In this specific example, that’s probably more than you want.

notifyloop

notifyloop takes a path and a command. When something in path changes, it runs command. For example, if you have a bunch of LESS in styles/ and you want to rebuild CSS when they change, you’d do something like this:

ggreer@carbon:~/code/geoff.greer.fm% notifyloop styles ./rebuild_less.sh
Watching styles
Path is /Users/ggreer/code/geoff.greer.fm/styles
Watching /Users/ggreer/code/geoff.greer.fm/styles
Change 18158642688910117872 in /Users/ggreer/code/geoff.greer.fm/styles/main-light.css, flags 70656 - matched directory, notifying
Running ./rebuild_less.sh
lessc styles/colors.less styles/colors.css
lessc styles/countdown.less styles/countdown.css
lessc styles/hexagons.less styles/hexagons.css
lessc styles/main-dark.less styles/main-dark.css
lessc styles/main-light.less styles/main-light.css
Path is /Users/ggreer/code/geoff.greer.fm/styles
Watching /Users/ggreer/code/geoff.greer.fm/styles

Notice that, although regenerate_less.sh changed CSS files in styles/, notifyloop did not go into an infinite regress. That’s because notifyloop waits until command has finished before resuming monitoring changes.

While simple, notifyloop is very flexible. You’ll probably use it more than the other tools.

autorsync

Finally, there’s autorsync. It takes a path and a remote destination. If anything in path changes, it rsyncs path to the remote. In the following example, I copy the source for ag to my home server. Since the repo was out of date on that server, my first save of decompress.c causes a lengthy rsync. As expected, the second save rsyncs much faster. Here’s the command and output:

ggreer@carbon:~/code% autorsync ag lithium.local:code/
Watching ag
Path is /Users/ggreer/code/ag
Watching /Users/ggreer/code/ag
Change 18158642688910848099 in /Users/ggreer/code/ag/src/decompress.c, flags 70656 - matched directory, notifying
Running rsync -avz ag lithium.local:code/
building file list ... done
ag/
...
sent 2882666 bytes  received 52598 bytes  1174105.60 bytes/sec
total size is 6612119  speedup is 2.25
Path is /Users/ggreer/code/ag
Watching /Users/ggreer/code/ag
Change 18158642688910848167 in /Users/ggreer/code/ag/src/decompress.c, flags 70656 - matched directory, notifying
Running rsync -avz ag lithium.local:code/
building file list ... done
ag/src/decompress.c

sent 36800 bytes  received 114 bytes  73828.00 bytes/sec
total size is 6612119  speedup is 179.12
Path is /Users/ggreer/code/ag
Watching /Users/ggreer/code/ag
...

…and so on.

Those who use GUI editors will likely recognize the value of autorsync. No longer will you have to ssh in and make changes using Vim or Emacs. Nor will you have to manually copy files or set up sshfs. With one command, everything gets synced to the remote server.

I hope you find these tools as useful as I do. Signed releases are available here. The source code is on GitHub at ggreer/fsevents-tools.