BarbaryWatchService

This is the official BarbaryWatchService repository, moved from https://code.google.com/p/barbarywatchservice/

See issues for current plans.

An implementation of Java 7’s WatchService for Java 6 on Mac OS X

Java 7 has an API to detect file system changes called Watch Service. This project uses JNA to hook into Apple’s File System Events API.

This is almost a direct drop-in replacement for Java 7’s Watch Service API. I’ve used the API source code from OpenJDK 7 as much as possible.

There’s a Demo example here.

A lot of source code is from OpenJDK.

Differences from Java 7’s API

You obtain a Watch Service instance as follows:

WatchService watcher = WatchService.newWatchService();

Instead of creating Path objects, use WatchableFile objects:

WatchableFile file1 = new WatchableFile(new File("/path/to/watch"));

Read the JavaDocs for Java 7’s Watch Service API.

There is a tutorial for Java 7’s Watch Service API here.

Download

Get the Maven dependency:

  <dependency>
    <groupId>net.incongru.watchservice</groupId>
    <artifactId>barbary-watchservice</artifactId>
    <version>1.0</version>
  </dependency>