FSWatcher Save

A cross platform file system watcher for .Net and Mono

FSWatcher uses various strategies to solve the nightmare that is file system events. It uses a variation of native events and raw polling determined by what is available. The native .Net file system watcher is completely unreliable with it's overflow exceptions. FSWatcher solves that and makes sure you are notified about all file system changes.

Getting started After cloning this repository run deploy.bat if you are on windows or deploy.sh if you are on Linux or MacOSX. When deploy is done you will find the binary files in the ReleaseBinaries directory. FSWatcher.Console.exe is just a command line utility.

Reference FSWatcher.dll in your project and use the following code to start listening for file system events:

var watcher = 
	new Watcher(
		watch_directory,
		(s) => Console.WriteLine("Directory created " + s),
		(s) => Console.WriteLine("Directory deleted " + s),
		(s) => Console.WriteLine("File created " + s),
		(s) => Console.WriteLine("File changed " + s),
		(s) => Console.WriteLine("File deleted " + s));
watcher.Watch();
....
watcher.StopWatching();

Additional features is manually setting the polling frequency. By default it is set to 4 times the time it takes to create a file system snapshot of the directory that is being watched. There are also properties showing watcher strategies:

var settings = watcher.Settings;
// Overriding the polling frequency in milliseconds
settings.SetPollFrequencyTo(10000);

// Chosen strategy
// Are we polling continuously
settings.ContinuousPolling

// What events are we provided with automatically
// If not provided automatically we rely on polling
settings.CanDetectEventedDirectoryCreate
settings.CanDetectEventedDirectoryDelete
settings.CanDetectEventedDirectoryRename
settings.CanDetectEventedFileCreate
settings.CanDetectEventedFileChange
settings.CanDetectEventedFileDelete
settings.CanDetectEventedFileRename

Look at the FSWatcher.Console/Program.cs for a working sample.

FSWatcher is licensed under the MIT license.