I second this: inotify-tools is a fantastic package (written by an
Aussie, no less) that's very easy to wrap in shell script.
The only problem i've ever had with inotifywait was when I recursively
ran it over a directory with about 30 subdirectories and 80,000 files.
It took *ages* to start, and segfaulted often.
That said, on shallow directories with less than 1000 files it should
cope adequately.
If you don't have a recent kernel and are looking for something with
maximum compatibility, try using rsync with the --list-only argument,
and parsing it's output with diff.
Lindsay
On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 5:45 AM, Massimiliano Fantuzzi
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi Guys !
> I really agree with all those methods, they are scriptable and efficient,
> but the best choice at present day is another...
> Is the choice for userland utilities (inotify-tools) to the new kernel
> module inotify.
>
> It gives granular auditing for files, directories and sockets in general,
> and doesn't introduce prestational overhead, as script may do. sure, you
> have to run a 2.6 kernel, i admit ... here is an example sscript from
> project's homepage:
> inotifywait example 1
> #!/bin/sh # A slightly complex but actually useful example inotifywait -mrq
> --timefmt '%d/%m/%y %H:%M' --format '%T %f' \ -e close_write /home/billy |
> while read date time file; do rsync /home/billy/${file}
> rsync://[EMAIL PROTECTED]/backup/${file} && \ echo "At ${time} on ${date},
> file ${file} was backed up via rsync" done This may be the most efficient
> way to block for changes on files from a shell script.If you don't specify
> which event you want to catch, all will be caught, and the event which
> occurred is output on stdout.inotifywait example 2
> #!/bin/sh EVENT=$(inotifywait --format '%e' ~/file1) [ $? != 0 ] && exit [
> "$EVENT" = "MODIFY" ] && echo 'file modified!' [ "$EVENT" = "DELETE_SELF" ]
> && echo 'file deleted!' # etc... inotifywait will return true if an event
> you asked for is caught. If an event you didn't ask for is caught, it will
> return false; this generally occurs if you listen to a file on a particular
> partition and the partition is subsequently unmounted, or if you listen for
> a specific event and the file is deleted before that event occurs.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inotify &
> http://inotify-tools.sourceforge.net/
>
> there are more and more applications for this, check it out and abandon
> find,test and diffs...
> maybe try perl, dunno, but also give a try to inotify (I REPEAT: IT IS A
> OFFICIAL KERNEL MODULE)
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 9, 2008 at 10:10 AM, ken Foskey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > On Sun, 2008-03-09 at 18:40 +1100, david wrote:
> > > #!/bin/bash
> > > if [ -N /some/directory/ ] ; then
> > > echo "change"
> > > else
> > > echo "no change"
> > > fi
> > >
> > > The object is to identify changes within a directory. This tells me if
> > > there are any new or deleted files, but not if files within the
> > > directory are modified.
> > >
> > > Is there a trivial way to do it?
> >
> > In script something like this:
> >
> > ls -l >file1
> > ls -l >file2
> >
> > diff file1 file2
> >
> > In perl
> >
> > use File::Monitor;
> >
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http://holmwood.id.au/~lindsay/ (me)
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