[launchd-dev] WatchPaths

[Quinn]

At 11:00 +0200 22/5/09, Sven Schwyn wrote:
>I've looked at launchd as a replacement for filesystem polling, 
>however, WatchPaths seems to be non-recursive, right?

That's correct.

>Is it possible to tweak launchd to watch an entire branch of the 
>filesystem (including subdirs) or do plans exist to extend it this 
>way?

Mac OS X 10.5 introduced infrastructure to watch an entire directory 
hierarchy, namely the FSEvents API.

<http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Conceptual/FSEvents_ProgGuide/>

FSEvents is not integrated with launchd, and such integration would 
present some tricky technical challenges (because of layering 
issues), but you can happily use it from your daemon once it's 
launchd.

S+E
-- 
Quinn "The Eskimo!"                    <http://www.apple.com/developer/>
Apple Developer Relations, Developer Technical Support, Core OS/Hardware