I want to watch a folder on my Mac (Snow Leopard) and then execute a script (giving it the filename of what was just moved into a folder (as a parameter... x.sh "filename")).
I have a script all written up in bash (x.sh) that will move some files and other stuff on input $1 I just need OSX to give me the file name when new files/folders are moved/created into a dir.
Any such command?
fswatch is a small program using the Mac OS X FSEvents API to monitor a directory.
When an event about any change to that directory is received, the specified
shell command is executed by /bin/bash
If you're on GNU/Linux,
inotifywatch (part of the
inotify-tools
package on most distributions) provides similar
functionality.
Update: fswatch
can now be used across many platforms including BSD, Debian, and Windows.
The new way that can watch multiple paths - for versions 1.x and higher:
fswatch -o ~/path/to/watch | xargs -n1 -I{} ~/script/to/run/when/files/change.sh
Note: The number output by
-o
will get added to the end of thexargs
command if not for the-I{}
. If you do choose to use that number, place{}
anywhere in your command.
The older way for versions 0.x:
fswatch ~/path/to/watch ~/script/to/run/when/files/change.sh
As of 9/12/13 it was added back in to homebrew - yay! So, update your formula list (brew update
) and then all you need to do is:
brew install fswatch
Type these commands in Terminal.app
cd /tmp
git clone https://github.com/alandipert/fswatch
cd fswatch/
make
cp fswatch /usr/local/bin/fswatch
If you don't have a c
compiler on your system you may need to install Xcode or Xcode command line tools - both free. However, if that is the case, you should probably just check out homebrew.
fswatch
version 1.xUsage:
fswatch [OPTION] ... path ...
Options:
-0, --print0 Use the ASCII NUL character (0) as line separator.
-1, --one-event Exit fsw after the first set of events is received.
-e, --exclude=REGEX Exclude paths matching REGEX.
-E, --extended Use exended regular expressions.
-f, --format-time Print the event time using the specified format.
-h, --help Show this message.
-i, --insensitive Use case insensitive regular expressions.
-k, --kqueue Use the kqueue monitor.
-l, --latency=DOUBLE Set the latency.
-L, --follow-links Follow symbolic links.
-n, --numeric Print a numeric event mask.
-o, --one-per-batch Print a single message with the number of change events.
in the current batch.
-p, --poll Use the poll monitor.
-r, --recursive Recurse subdirectories.
-t, --timestamp Print the event timestamp.
-u, --utc-time Print the event time as UTC time.
-v, --verbose Print verbose output.
-x, --event-flags Print the event flags.
See the man page for more information.