trigger

README

trigger

A convenience tool that polls the file system for changes and runs a command on file change. In the case fswatch support is lacking, it falls back to standard Linux commands like 'find' and 'md5sum' to detect changes. trigger works great for live reload. It also works as a pseudo if-this-then-that tool.

Parameters

Parameter	Default	Optional	Description
-command	""	No	Command to execute when a change has been detected. Multiple command arguments may be used and are executed in order.
-directory	.	Yes	Directory to watch for changes.
-exclude-dir	""	Yes	Directories to exclude from polling.
-git	false	Yes	Only poll files tracked by git. This will ignore -directory, -exclude-dir, and -pattern flags.
-pattern	"*"	Yes	File pattern to watch.
-poll	5000	Yes	Time between polls (in milliseconds)
-type	fswatch	Yes	Type of polling; poll, fswatch
-v	false	Yes	Verbose logging
-wait	false	Yes	Wait until a change is detected before running command(s).

The -directory, -exclude-dir, and -pattern parameters use the Linux find command syntax.

Build

go build

Examples

-command

./trigger -command "echo 'Command 1" -command "echo 'Command 2'"

-v

./trigger -v -command "go build"

-wait

./trigger -wait -command "go build"

Polling Examples

The default type is fswatch. The 'poll' type is the fallback in the case fswatch doesn't exist. It also contains some additional options.

-pattern

./trigger -pattern "*.go" -command "go build" -command "./somebinary" -type poll

-exclude-dir

./trigger -exclude-dir "./vendor/*" -exclude-dir "./.git/*" -command "go build" -command "./somebinary" -type poll

-poll

./trigger -poll 1000 -command "go build" -command "./somebinary" -type poll

TODOs

• Attempt to replace polling
  • Some systems might not have md5sum installed by default.
  • Surely file system changes can be detected in go