Recognizing the Arrival of a New File

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  • Greg Lindstrom
    #1

    Recognizing the Arrival of a New File

    Hello-
    I am writing an application where I need to recognize when a file
    arrives in a given directory. Files may arrive at any time during the
    course of the day. Do I set up a cron job to poll the directory every
    few minutes? Write a daemon to monitor the directory? Or is there some
    other more common/accepted way to perform this task? I'm using Python
    2.3 on Linux.

    Thanks for your help,
    --greg

    --
    Greg Lindstrom 501 975.4859
    Computer Programmer greg.lindstrom@ novasyshealth.c om
    NovaSys Health
    Little Rock, Arkansas

    "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams." W.W.


    Tags: None
    • Christos TZOTZIOY Georgiou
      #2
      Re: Recognizing the Arrival of a New File

      On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 08:43:04 -0600, rumours say that Greg Lindstrom
      <greg.lindstrom @novasyshealth. com> might have written:
      [color=blue]
      >I am writing an application where I need to recognize when a file
      >arrives in a given directory. Files may arrive at any time during the
      >course of the day. Do I set up a cron job to poll the directory every
      >few minutes? Write a daemon to monitor the directory? Or is there some
      >other more common/accepted way to perform this task? I'm using Python
      >2.3 on Linux.[/color]

      The most common way to watch for a file or a directory change (in my experience)
      is to use the SGI fam (file alteration monitor); I think it has been ported to
      Linux. Otherwise, either way you describe is common use. Suggestion: first
      check for changes in the st_mtime of the directory, then search for the file
      existence.
      --
      TZOTZIOY, I speak England very best.
      "Be strict when sending and tolerant when receiving." (from RFC1958)
      I really should keep that in mind when talking with people, actually...

        Comment

        • Chris Green
          #3
          Re: Recognizing the Arrival of a New File

          Greg Lindstrom <greg.lindstrom @novasyshealth. com> writes:
          [color=blue]
          > Hello-
          > I am writing an application where I need to recognize when a file
          > arrives in a given directory. Files may arrive at any time during the
          > course of the day. Do I set up a cron job to poll the directory every
          > few minutes? Write a daemon to monitor the directory? Or is there some
          > other more common/accepted way to perform this task? I'm using Python
          > 2.3 on Linux.[/color]

          At my last job, we had a similar problem and I wanted to be able to
          check that the file was closed by the application that was putting it
          there (in that case the application was w32 writing to a share via
          samba).

          http://cmg.dok.org/cgi-bin/pyblosxom.cgi/python/linuxlease/


          Every other way I could find that relied on simple FS semantics had
          the possibility of reading a file partially.
          --
          Chris Green <cmg@dok.org>
          Eschew obfuscation.

            Comment

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