Node Watcher

Run user defined commands on file changes.

Installation

npm install node-watch-changes
npm install -g node-watch-changes

Usage

Create a configuration file in the fashion of the following example.

// Define your commands. They can be either a string or a function returning a string.
// If such a function doesn't return a string, no command will be executed.

var ftp = {
    name: 'Upload html files on change via NcFTP',
    command: function(event, file) {
        if (event === 'change' && file.match(/\.html$/)) {
            return 'ncftpput -u user -p password ftp.server.com /srv/http/project "' + file + '"';
        }
    }
};

var rsync = {
    name: 'Rsync on changes',
    command: 'rsync -aP --delete --exclude "node_modules" "./" "server:/path/to/destination"'
};

var sass = {
    command: 'sass --watch css',
    delay: 100 // Wait 100 ms before executing this command
};

var config = {
    directory: '.', // The directory which will be watched for changes. If falsy, the parent directory of this module will be watched.
    ignore: [ // ignore can be a string, regex, function or an array containing any of them. Has to be anymatch compatible, see https://github.com/es128/anymatch
        /node_modules/,
        /\.git/
    ],
    delay: 1000, // Delay the execution of the commands on change in ms
    verbosity: 'normal', // Possible values are: minimal, normal, verbose
    commandsOnStart: [
        sass
    ],
    commandsOnChange: [
        rsync
    ],
    commandsOnEnd: [

    ]
};

module.exports = config;

Name the file watcherConfig.js to make the module autoload it, or name it whatever you want and pass the path as an argument.

Locally installed

Require and use it.

var watcher = require('node-watch-changes');

watcher(); // The module uses watcherConfig.js
watcher('myConfig.js'); // The module uses myConfig.js

Globally installed

Call it from the terminal using watcher to use watcherConfig.js as the configuration file or watcher myConfig.js to use myConfig.js as the configuration file.