graceful-chokidar

Watching files in node.js is a total nightmare. Chokidar makes the whole experience much less painful, but it's not foolproof - I've often encountered EMFILE (too many open files) errors when using it to watch large directories.

This fork simply replaces require('fs') with require('graceful-fs'). graceful-fs is a drop-in replacement for the native fs that prevents EMFILE errors from occurring. It also removes the optional dependency on fsevents (the native filesystem events binding), because I've experienced segmentation faults while using it.

Other than that, nothing has changed, and full credit belongs to Paul Miller.

In theory, using graceful-fs should entail a performance hit. In practice, you won't notice it - my experience is that it's every bit as fast and reliable as the original Chokidar, except that you don't hit EMFILE.

Chokidar

A neat wrapper around node.js fs.watch / fs.watchFile.

Why?

Node.js fs.watch:

• Doesn't report filenames on OS X.
• Doesn't report events at all when using editors like Sublime on OS X.
• Doesn't use OS X internals for fast low-CPU watching on OS X (no other fs watch module does this!).
• Sometimes reports events twice.
• Has only one non-useful event: rename.
• Has a lot of other issues

Node.js fs.watchFile:

• Almost as shitty in event tracking.

Other node.js watching libraries:

• Are not using ultra-fast non-polling watcher implementation on OS X

Chokidar resolves these problems.

It is used in brunch, socketstream, and karma and has proven itself in production environments.

Getting started

Install chokidar via node.js package manager:

npm install chokidar

Then just require the package in your code:

var chokidar = require('chokidar');

var watcher = chokidar.watch('file or dir', {ignored: /[\/\\]\./, persistent: true});

watcher
  .on('add', function(path) {console.log('File', path, 'has been added');})
  .on('addDir', function(path) {console.log('Directory', path, 'has been added');})
  .on('change', function(path) {console.log('File', path, 'has been changed');})
  .on('unlink', function(path) {console.log('File', path, 'has been removed');})
  .on('unlinkDir', function(path) {console.log('Directory', path, 'has been removed');})
  .on('error', function(error) {console.error('Error happened', error);})

// 'add', 'addDir' and 'change' events also receive stat() results as second argument.
// http://nodejs.org/api/fs.html#fs_class_fs_stats
watcher.on('change', function(path, stats) {
  console.log('File', path, 'changed size to', stats.size);
});

watcher.add('new-file');
watcher.add(['new-file-2', 'new-file-3']);

// Only needed if watching is persistent.
watcher.close();

// One-liner
require('chokidar').watch('.', {ignored: /[\/\\]\./}).on('all', function(event, path) {
  console.log(event, path);
});

API

• chokidar.watch(paths, options): takes paths to be watched recursively and options:
  • options.ignored (regexp or function) files to be ignored. This function or regexp is tested against the whole path, not just filename. If it is a function with two arguments, it gets called twice per path - once with a single argument (the path), second time with two arguments (the path and the fs.Stats object of that path).
  • options.persistent (default: false). Indicates whether the process should continue to run as long as files are being watched.
  • options.ignorePermissionErrors (default: false). Indicates whether to watch files that don't have read permissions.
  • options.ignoreInitial (default: false). Indicates whether chokidar should ignore the initial add events or not.
  • options.interval (default: 100). Interval of file system polling.
  • options.binaryInterval (default: 300). Interval of file system polling for binary files (see extensions in src/is-binary).
  • options.usePolling (default: false on Windows, true on Linux and OS X). Whether to use fs.watchFile (backed by polling), or fs.watch. If polling leads to high CPU utilization, consider setting this to false.

chokidar.watch() produces an instance of FSWatcher. Methods of FSWatcher:

• .add(file / files): Add directories / files for tracking. Takes an array of strings (file paths) or just one path.
• .on(event, callback): Listen for an FS event. Available events: add, change, unlink, error. Additionally all is available which gets emitted for every add, change and unlink.
• .close(): Removes all listeners from watched files.

License

The MIT license.

Copyright (c) 2013 Paul Miller (http://paulmillr.com)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.