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Revision: 1.3
Committed: Tue Aug 23 02:08:09 2005 UTC (18 years, 10 months ago) by root
Branch: MAIN
Changes since 1.2: +64 -27 lines
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File Contents

# Content
1 NAME
2 Linux::Inotify2 - scalable directory/file change notification
3
4 SYNOPSIS
5 use Linux::Inotify2;
6
7 # create a new object
8 my $inotify = new Linux::Inotify2
9 or die "Unable to create new inotify object: $!";
10
11 # for Event:
12 Event->io (fd =>$inotify->fileno, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $inotify->poll });
13 # for Glib:
14 add_watch Glib::IO $inotify->fileno, in => sub { $inotify->poll };
15 # manually:
16 1 while $inotify->poll;
17
18 # add watchers
19 $inotify->watch ("/etc/passwd", IN_ACCESS, sub {
20 my $e = shift;
21 my $name = $e->fullname;
22 print "$name was accessed\n" if $e->IN_ACCESS;
23 print "$name is no longer mounted\n" if $e->IN_UNMOUNT;
24 print "$name is gone\n" if $e->IN_IGNORED;
25 print "events for $name have been lost\n" if $e->IN_Q_OVERFLOW;
26
27 # cancel this watcheR: remove no further events
28 $e->w->cancel;
29 });
30
31 DESCRIPTION
32 The Linux::Inotify2 Class
33 This module implements an interface to the Linux 2.6.13 and later
34 Inotify file/directory change notification sytem.
35
36 It has a number of advantages over the Linux::Inotify module:
37
38 - it is portable (Linux::Inotify only works on x86)
39 - the equivalent of fullname works correctly
40 - it is better documented
41 - it has callback-style interface, which is better suited for
42 integration.
43
44 my $inotify = new Linux::Inotify2
45 Create a new notify object and return it. A notify object is kind of
46 a container that stores watches on filesystem names and is
47 responsible for handling event data.
48
49 On error, "undef" is returned and $! will be set accordingly. The
50 followign errors are documented:
51
52 ENFILE The system limit on the total number of file descriptors has been reached.
53 EMFILE The user limit on the total number of inotify instances has been reached.
54 ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory is available.
55
56 Example:
57
58 my $inotify = new Linux::Inotify2
59 or die "Unable to create new inotify object: $!";
60
61 $watch = $inotify->watch ($name, $mask, $cb)
62 Add a new watcher to the given notifier. The watcher will create
63 events on the pathname $name as given in $mask, which can be any of
64 the following constants (all exported by default) ORed together.
65
66 "file" refers to any filesystem object in the watch'ed object
67 (always a directory), that is files, directories, symlinks, device
68 nodes etc., while "object" refers to the object the watch has been
69 set on itself:
70
71 IN_ACCESS object was accessed
72 IN_MODIFY object was modified
73 IN_ATTRIB object metadata changed
74 IN_CLOSE_WRITE writable fd to file / to object was closed
75 IN_CLOSE_NOWRITE readonly fd to file / to object closed
76 IN_OPEN object was opened
77 IN_MOVED_FROM file was moved from this object (directory)
78 IN_MOVED_TO file was moved to this object (directory)
79 IN_CREATE file was created in this object (directory)
80 IN_DELETE file was deleted from this object (directory)
81 IN_DELETE_SELF object itself was deleted
82 IN_ALL_EVENTS all of the above events
83
84 IN_ONESHOT only send event once
85
86 IN_CLOSE same as IN_CLOSE_WRITE | IN_CLOSE_NOWRITE
87 IN_MOVE same as IN_MOVED_FROM | IN_MOVED_TO
88
89 $cb is a perl code reference that is called for each event. It
90 receives a "Linux::Inotify2::Event" object.
91
92 The returned $watch object is of class "Linux::Inotify2::Watch".
93
94 On error, "undef" is returned and $! will be set accordingly. The
95 following errors are documented:
96
97 EBADF The given file descriptor is not valid.
98 EINVAL The given event mask contains no legal events.
99 ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.
100 ENOSPC The user limit on the total number of inotify watches was reached or the kernel failed to allocate a needed resource.
101 EACCESS Read access to the given file is not permitted.
102
103 Example, show when "/etc/passwd" gets accessed and/or modified once:
104
105 $inotify->watch ("/etc/passwd", IN_ACCESS | IN_MODIFY, sub {
106 my $e = shift;
107 print "$e->{w}{name} was accessed\n" if $e->IN_ACCESS;
108 print "$e->{w}{name} was modified\n" if $e->IN_MODIFY;
109 print "$e->{w}{name} is no longer mounted\n" if $e->IN_UNMOUNT;
110 print "events for $e->{w}{name} have been lost\n" if $e->IN_Q_OVERFLOW;
111
112 $e->w->cancel;
113 });
114
115 $inotify->fileno
116 Returns the fileno for this notify object. You are responsible for
117 calling the "poll" method when this fileno becomes ready for
118 reading.
119
120 $count = $inotify->poll
121 Reads events from the kernel and handles them. If the notify fileno
122 is blocking (the default), then this method waits for at least one
123 event (and thus returns true unless an error occurs). Otherwise it
124 returns immediately when no pending events could be read.
125
126 Returns the count of events that have been handled.
127
128 The Linux::Inotify2::Event Class
129 Objects of this class are handed as first argument to the watch
130 callback. It has the following members and methods:
131
132 $event->w
133 $event->{w}
134 The watcher object for this event.
135
136 $event->name
137 $event->{name}
138 The path of the filesystem object, relative to the watch name.
139
140 $watch->fullname
141 Returns the "full" name of the relevant object, i.e. including the
142 "name" component of the watcher.
143
144 $event->mask
145 $event->{mask}
146 The received event mask. In addition the the events described for
147 "$inotify-"watch>, the following flags (exported by default) can be
148 set:
149
150 IN_ISDIR event object is a directory
151
152 IN_Q_OVERFLOW event queue overflowed
153
154 # when the following flags are set, then watchers are canceled automatically
155 IN_UNMOUNT filesystem for watch'ed object was unmounted
156 IN_IGNORED file was ignored/is gone (no more events are delivered)
157
158 $event->IN_xxx
159 Returns a boolean that returns true if the event mask matches the
160 event. All of the "IN_xxx" constants can be used as methods.
161
162 $event->cookie
163 $event->{cookie}
164 The event cookie, can be used to synchronize two related events.
165
166 The Linux::Inotify2::Watch Class
167 Watch objects are created by calling the "watch" method of a notifier.
168
169 It has the following members and methods:
170
171 $watch->name
172 $watch->{name}
173 The name as specified in the "watch" call. For the object itself, this
174 is the empty string. For directory watches, this is the name of the
175 entry without leading path elements.
176
177 $watch->mask
178 $watch->{mask}
179 The mask as specified in the "watch" call.
180
181 $watch->cb ([new callback])
182 $watch->{cb}
183 The callback as specified in the "watch" call. Can optionally be
184 changed.
185
186 $watch->cancel
187 Cancels/removes this watch. Future events, even if already queued
188 queued, will not be handled and resources will be freed.
189
190 SEE ALSO
191 Linux::Inotify.
192
193 AUTHOR
194 Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
195 http://home.schmorp.de/
196