icemac.callonchange 0.1

Call a command when a directory changes. (Mac OS only)

icemac.callonchange calls a specific command when a directory or something in it has changed. It was developed to ease test driven development (TDD): it can call the test case under development each time the test case or the developed code changes.

Contents

• Requirements

• Usage

  • Usage as script

    • Installation

    • Call as script

  • In Buildout

    • Installation

    • Usage as buildout script

  • Run tests

• Thanks

• To do

• Changelog

Requirements

• Mac OS X 10.5+ (Leopard)

Usage

icemac.callonchange can be used as standalone script and in buildout.

Usage as script

Installation

To install icemac.callonchange as script call:

$ python setup.py install

or install it using a package manager like easy_install or pip.

Call as script

To call it as a script add the path to the directory to be observed and the command (script or program) to be called when the directory or something in it has changed.

Example to call xeyes when something changed in the Downloads directory enter:

$ callonchange ~/Dowloads xeyes

In Buildout

Installation

Add a section to your buildout to generate a script for icemac.callonchange (don’t forget to add it to the parts!):

[coc]
recipe = zc.recipe.egg
eggs = icemac.callonchange
arguments = "src", "bin/test"

This creates a callonchange script for the src directory which calls bin/test on each change in src or a subdirectory.

Usage as buildout script

You can add additional parameters when you call the generated script:

$ bin/callonchange -t testObserver

This command line calls bin/test -t testObserver on each change in the src directory.

Run tests

To run the tests of icemac.callonchange call:

$ python setup.py test

or use buildout:

$ python bootstrap.py
$ bin/buildout
$ bin/test

Thanks

Thanks to Malte Borch for the great MacFSEvents which icemac.callonchange is based on.

To do

• Ease buildout integration by providing a buildout recipe with default arguments.

• icemac.callonchange is currently not useable in situations where the command changes something in the observed diretory. (e. g. LaTeX documents can’t be created with it as the creation changes the observed diretory which starts creation … over and over again. (Need an ability to select file extension(s) for which the command should be run.)

Changelog

0.1 (2010-07-02)

• Initial release.