What is adhocify?

adhocify uses inotify to watch for file system events. Once an event occurs it can execute a script. The path of the file and the event will be passed to that script.

Requirements

adhocify only runs on Linux. You need a kernel and libc with inotify support - pretty much all satisfy this condition.

Options

See adhocify --help.

Examples:

adhocify -w /tmp/ /home/user/myscript.sh

Watches for IN_CLOSE_WRITE events in /tmp/ and launches script /home/user/myscript.sh

adhocify -w /tmp/ -w /var/run /home/user/myscript.sh

Same as above, but also watches /var/run

adhocify -w /tmp/ -w /var/run /home/user/myscript.sh {}

Same as above, but also passes the file an event occured on to that script.(argv[1]).

adhocify -w /tmp/ /bin/echo the file {} was written to

Running echo "Test" > /tmp/test will print in the shell adhocify was launched in: "the file /tmp/test was written to"

adhocify /home/user/myscript.sh

Watches for IN_CLOSE_WRITE events in the current directory, launches script /home/user/myscript.

adhocify -m IN\_OPEN -w /tmp /home/user/myscript.sh

Watches for IN_OPEN events in /tmp/, launches script /home/user/myscript.sh

adhocify -w /tmp -i *.txt /home/user/myscript.sh

Watches for IN_CLOSE_WRITE events in /tmp/ but will not pass any events for *.txt files to the script

find . -type d | adhocify -s /home/user/myscript.sh

Starts monitoring every subdirectory of the current path for IN_CLOSE_WRITE events. However, inotify has limits, thus it may not always work, e. g. when inotify descriptors are being used by other programs or the tree is too large. Therefore adhocify will exit if it cannot setup a watch for all supplied directories. See inotify(7), /proc/sys/fs/inotify/.

adhocify -m IN_CREATE --exit-with-child=0 -- /usr/bin/test -f awaited_file

Keep running until the file named "awaited_file" is created in the current directory.

--exit-with-child also supports negation, so e. g. with --exit-with-child='!0' adhocify would keep running as long as the child commands exits with 0.

Other tools

If adhocify does not suit your needs, take a look at:

• inotify-tools: https://github.com/rvoicilas/inotify-tools/wiki