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authorGravatar Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net>2012-06-17 01:25:48 -0400
committerGravatar Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net>2012-06-17 01:28:09 -0400
commitda261b31de349f99e518f590017f3a10078bc6dd (patch)
tree7cf554993b109f420b8ca23284f7e3fe021c9f56
parenteaf4cbec541673c25cfbb2104eb67ac5818de1b1 (diff)
surveyed the OSX and BSD options for file monitoring
-rw-r--r--doc/design/assistant/inotify.mdwn31
1 files changed, 31 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/doc/design/assistant/inotify.mdwn b/doc/design/assistant/inotify.mdwn
index 0b0eb430c..2cd665448 100644
--- a/doc/design/assistant/inotify.mdwn
+++ b/doc/design/assistant/inotify.mdwn
@@ -3,6 +3,8 @@ inotify for changes, and automatically annexing new files, etc.
There is a `watch` branch in git that adds the command.
+[[!toc]]
+
## known bugs
* If a file is checked into git as a normal file and gets modified
@@ -11,6 +13,35 @@ There is a `watch` branch in git that adds the command.
* When you `git annex unlock` a file, it will immediately be re-locked.
+## beyond Linux
+
+I'd also like to support OSX and if possible the BSDs.
+
+* kqueue ([haskell bindings](http://hackage.haskell.org/package/kqueue))
+ is supported by FreeBSD, OSX, and other BSDs.
+
+ From what I can find, kqueue does not provide full directory watching
+ capabilities. To watch a file, you have to have an open file descriptor
+ to the file. This wouldn't scale.
+
+ Gamin does the best it can with just kqueue, supplimented by polling.
+ The source file `server/gam_kqueue.c` makes for interesting reading.
+ Using gamin to do the heavy lifting is one option.
+ ([haskell bindings](http://hackage.haskell.org/package/hlibfam) for FAM;
+ gamin shares the API)
+
+* hfsevents ([haskell bindings](http://hackage.haskell.org/package/hfsevents))
+ is OSX specific.
+
+ Originally it was only directory level, and you were only told a
+ directory had changed and not which file. Based on the haskell
+ binding's code, from OSX 10.7.0, file level events were added.
+
+ This will be harder for me to develop for, since I don't have access to
+ OSX machines..
+
+* Windows has a Win32 ReadDirectoryChangesW, and perhaps other things.
+
## todo
- Support OSes other than Linux; it only uses inotify currently.