VB.NET FileSystemWatcher Multiple Change Events

Question

I have the following code:

Imports System.IO

Public Class Blah
    Public Sub New()
        InitializeComponent()

        Dim watcher As New FileSystemWatcher("C:\")
        watcher.EnableRaisingEvents = True

        AddHandler watcher.Changed, AddressOf watcher_Changed
    End Sub

    Private Sub watcher_Changed(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As FileSystemEventArgs)
        MsgBox(e.FullPath)
    End Sub
End Class

When I run it and save changes to a file on my C drive, the code works great, except it executes the watcher_Changed() method four times. Any idea why? The changeType is "4" every time.

Thanks.

Answer 1

From the "Troubleshooting FileSystemWatcher Components" section of the VS.NET documentation...

Multiple Created Events Generated for a Single Action

You may notice in certain situations that a single creation event generates multiple Created events that are handled by your component. For example, if you use a FileSystemWatcher component to monitor the creation of new files in a directory, and then test it by using Notepad to create a file, you may see two Created events generated even though only a single file was created. This is because Notepad performs multiple file system actions during the writing process. Notepad writes to the disk in batches that create the content of the file and then the file attributes. Other applications may perform in the same manner. Because FileSystemWatcher monitors the operating system activities, all events that these applications fire will be picked up.

Note: Notepad may also cause other interesting event generations. For example, if you use the ChangeEventFilter to specify that you want to watch only for attribute changes, and then you write to a file in the directory you are watching using Notepad, you will raise an event . This is because Notepad updates the Archived attribute for the file during this operation.