README.md

WatchDog

An extendable, simple and fluent file system watcher for .NET

How to use WatchDog

The PollingWatcher is the default file system watcher in WatchDog. It is a polling watcher that polls the directory every 100ms by default.

Basic Setup

Create a new WatchDogHost and add a PollingWatcher

WatchDogHost h = new WatchDogHost();
h.AddWatcher(new PollingWatcher(@"", 500));
h.Start();

Register a handler method for handeling changes that are detected by WatchDog

WatchDogHost h = new WatchDogHost();
h.AddWatcher(new PollingWatcher(@"", 500)
    .UseChangeHandler(ChangeEventHandler));
h.Start();

Change Event Handler

Using the change handler method to do something

void ChangeEventHandler(IChangeSet changeSet)
{
    if (changeSet.HasChanges())
    {
        foreach (ChangeItem c in changeSet.ChangeItems)
        {
          //do something
        }
    }
}

Custom Watchers

The easiest way to create a custom watcher is to take advantage of the default functionality by inheriting from AbstractWatcher

    public class MyCustomWatcher : AbstractWatcher
    {
        public string Path { get; }
        public Action<IChangeSet> OnChange { get; }
        public bool Start() { }
        public bool Stop() { }
    }

If you would like to build your own watcher from the groud up then you can simply implement IWatcher. This will still allow you to add it to your WatchDogHost object.

    public class MyCustomWatcher : IWatcher
    {
        public string Path { get; }
        public Action<IChangeSet> OnChange { get; }
        public bool Start() { }
        public bool Stop() { }
    }

Limitations

WatchDog will not detect changes when watching a directory/file under the following conditions. Changing the watched directory/file to another state and returning that state back to its original state before the next poll interval. This will not fire the OnChange event.