The inotify-java API provides an event-based mechanism for monitoring Linux file system events using the inotify interface provided by glibc (versions 2.4 and up) and the Linux kernel, starting from 2.6.13.

Features

• Simple, easy to use
• Feature-complete support for inotify
• Low memory footprint
• API uses blocking calls yielding low CPU usage

Installation

1. Extract the archive.
• tar xzf inotify-java-[version].tar.bz2
2. Build it.
• ant release -Dversion=[version]
3. Copy libinotify-java.so to a suitable location.
• cp build/native/libinotify-java.so /usr/lib
4. Copy inotify-java-[version].jar to a suitable location.
• cp dist/inotify-java-[version].jar /usr/share/java/

Example

        try {
            Inotify i = new Inotify();
            InotifyEventListener e = new InotifyEventListener() {

                @Override
                public void filesystemEventOccurred(InotifyEvent e) {
                    System.out.println("inotify event occurred!");
                }

                @Override
                public void queueFull(EventQueueFull e) {
                    System.out.println("inotify event queue: " + e.getSource() +
                            " is full!");
                }
                
            };
            i.addInotifyEventListener(e);
            i.addWatch(System.getProperty("user.home"), Constants.IN_ACCESS);
        } catch (UnsatisfiedLinkError e) {
            System.err.println("unsatisfied link error");
        } catch (UserLimitException e) {
            System.err.println("user limit exception");
        } catch (SystemLimitException e) {
            System.err.println("system limit exception");
        } catch (InsufficientKernelMemoryException e) {
            System.err.println("insufficient kernel memory exception");
        }

Example Summary

1. Create an instance.
2. Add an event listener.
3. Add watches.

Links

• Browse the source
• Post an issue