FileWatcher

A Windows service, console application, and library that allows execution of commands in response to file system changes.

Usage

FileWatcher can be used either as a console application, as a Windows service, or as a library in your own applications. If you want to use the service or console application just grab a zip from releases.

Usage: FileWatcher.Service [OPTION]... CONFIGFILE...
Watch file system changes.

Options:
  -c, --console              Run as a console application
  -h, --help                 Show this message and exit
  -d, --dryrun               Do not execute commands, only perform a test run
  -r, --reload               Reload when configuration file changes (default is
                               true)

A configuration file looks like this:

{
  "DryRun": true,
  "AutoReload": true,
  "Tasks": [
    {
      "Name": "MyTask",
      "Path": "c:/path/to/watch",
      "Filter": "*",
      "IncludeSubdirectories": false,
      "NotifyFilter": "Attributes, CreationTime, LastAccess, LastWrite",
      "ChangeTypes": "Changed, Created, Deleted, Renamed",
      "Command": "c:/path/to/command",
      "Arguments": "-x -y -z",
      "WorkingDirectory": "c:/path/to/cwd",
      "Throttle": 2000,
      "Merge": true,
      "Wait": true,
      "Timeout": 10
    }
  ]
}

Property	Description
DryRun	If true, no actual commands will be executed (default is false). Will be considered true if either this or the command line argument -d is true.
AutoReload	If true, will automatically reload the configuration file when it changes (default is true). Will be considered true if this or the command line argument -r is true.
Name	Required. Name of the task used for identification in the log.
Path	Required. The path of the directory to watch.
Filter	The filter that determines the files that will be watched (default is "*"). Syntax is the same as for FileSystemWatcher.Filter.
IncludeSubdirectories	If true, will include subdirectories when watching file system changes (default is false).
NotifyFilter	The attributes to consider for detection of file system changes (default is LastWrite, FileName, DirectoryName). Possible values are Attributes, CreationTime, LastAccess, LastWrite, FileName, DirectoryName, Security, and Size (see also the documentation for the NotifyFilters enum).
ChangeTypes	The types of changes to watch (default is All). Possible values are All, Changed, Created, Deleted, Renamed (see also the documentation for WatcherChangeTypes enum).
Command	Required. The path to the executable to invoke when a file system change has occurred. May contain environment variables, e.g. "%AppData%\cmd.exe". When invoked, gets passed several environment variables that describe the change that has occurred: FileWatcher_FullPath FileWatcher_Name (relative to the Path) FileWatcher_ChangeType FileWatcher_OldPath (for renames) FileWatcher_OldName (for renames)
Arguments	The arguments to pass to the command. May contain environment variables. May contain a number of placeholders: {FullPath} {Name} (relative to Path) {ChangeType} {OldPath} (for renames, otherwise replaced with "") {OldName} (for renames, otherwise replaced with "")
WorkingDirectory	The working directory to start the command in.
Throttle	The number of milliseconds to wait in between command invocations (default is 0).
Merge	If true, will merge consecutive events within the Throttle timespan (default is false). Only the last event within the timespan is used to invoke the command.
Wait	If true, will wait for a started command to exit before starting a new one (default is true).
Timeout	The time in seconds to wait for a command to exit. -1 means wait indefinitely (the default). If a command timeout expires, the process will be killed.

Logging

FileWatcher uses NLog. If you're using the console application, you can customize the NLog.config to your needs. The default configuration logs to the console as well as a daily rolling file log.txt in the same folder as the executable and keeps a maximum of 10 archived log files.

Service

In addition to the command line you can also run FileWatcher as a Windows service. To install the service, use the sc command:

sc create FileWatcher binpath= "c:\path\to\FileWatcher.Service.exe config.json"
sc description FileWatcher "Executes commands in response to file system changes"

Note the space after binpath=. The current working directory of the service is the directory containing the executable and will be used to find the configuration file if it is given as a relative path (like in the example above).

To start the service:

net start FileWatcher