Question 1

How to install fswatch on Ubuntu?

Accepted Answer

Check if fswatch is in your package manager; if not, download a release tarball and follow the INSTALL file for Linux-specific build instructions, which may require a C++17 compiler and basic dependencies.

Question 2

fswatch vs inotify-tools: which is better for Linux?

Accepted Answer

fswatch offers cross-platform consistency and features like recursive monitoring and filtering, but inotify-tools might be lighter for Linux-only tasks. fswatch's inotify monitor has overflow risks, so consider event volume when choosing.

Question 3

How to monitor only .js files with fswatch?

Accepted Answer

Use the -e (exclude) or -i (include) options with regular expressions. For example, 'fswatch -e '.*\.(?!js$)[^.]*$' path' can filter non-.js files, but test regex patterns for your OS.

Question 4

Does fswatch work in real-time on Windows?

Accepted Answer

Yes, using the ReadDirectoryChangesW API, but it only monitors directories, so you must watch parent directories and filter events for specific files, which adds some latency and complexity.

Question 5

How to handle fswatch output in a bash script?

Accepted Answer

Pipe fswatch with -0 for null-separated output and use a while loop, as shown in the usage: 'fswatch -0 path | while read -d "" event; do echo "${event}"; done'. This avoids issues with spaces in filenames.

Question 6

What's the performance impact of fswatch on large directories?

Accepted Answer

It depends on the monitor: native APIs like FSEvents are efficient, but the poll monitor degrades with file count and uses ~150 MB for 500k files. Adjust latency settings to reduce disk access on resource-limited systems.

fswatch

What is fswatch?

Overview

Use Cases

Best For

Related Projects

Found a gem we're missing?

Not Ideal For

Pros & Cons

Pros

Cons

Frequently Asked Questions