y3llowcake / inl

inotify loop: run, watch, repeat

inl: inotify loop

1. Run an arbitrary shell command. (e.g. build, test, scp, you-name-it)
2. Wait for a file-system event in the current working directory.
3. Goto 1.

I often have this running in one terminal pane, and my editor in another.

Installation

go get -u github.com/y3llowcake/inl

Usage

Simple:

inl ls -la

Don't run to completion (uses SIGKILL on event):

inl -n echo zzz \&\& sleep 60

Don't run to completion, wait 5 seconds before re-establishing watches. This is may be useful when running a build step that touches the filesystem:

inl -n -t 5s make \&\& ./long-lived-server

Alternatively, only watch certain files:

inl -i=".*\.go" go test ./...

A bit of history

The original version of this program was implemented as a shell script. This served me well for nearly a decade. Then I decided it was time for more features.

while true; do
  clear
  echo $@
  /bin/bash -c "$@"
  inotifywait -r -e CREATE -e ATTRIB ./ --exclude '(^.+\.sw[px]$)|(^4913$)'
  sleep 0.1
  if [[ $? != 0 ]]; then
    exit $?
  fi
done