| # Chokidar [](https://github.com/paulmillr/chokidar) |
|
|
| > Minimal and efficient cross-platform file watching library |
|
|
| ## Why? |
|
|
| There are many reasons to prefer Chokidar to raw fs.watch / fs.watchFile in 2024: |
|
|
| - Events are properly reported |
| - macOS events report filenames |
| - events are not reported twice |
| - changes are reported as add / change / unlink instead of useless `rename` |
| - Atomic writes are supported, using `atomic` option |
| - Some file editors use them |
| - Chunked writes are supported, using `awaitWriteFinish` option |
| - Large files are commonly written in chunks |
| - File / dir filtering is supported |
| - Symbolic links are supported |
| - Recursive watching is always supported, instead of partial when using raw events |
| - Includes a way to limit recursion depth |
|
|
| Chokidar relies on the Node.js core `fs` module, but when using |
| `fs.watch` and `fs.watchFile` for watching, it normalizes the events it |
| receives, often checking for truth by getting file stats and/or dir contents. |
| The `fs.watch`-based implementation is the default, which |
| avoids polling and keeps CPU usage down. Be advised that chokidar will initiate |
| watchers recursively for everything within scope of the paths that have been |
| specified, so be judicious about not wasting system resources by watching much |
| more than needed. For some cases, `fs.watchFile`, which utilizes polling and uses more resources, is used. |
|
|
| Made for [Brunch](https://brunch.io/) in 2012, |
| it is now used in [~30 million repositories](https://www.npmjs.com/browse/depended/chokidar) and |
| has proven itself in production environments. |
|
|
| **Sep 2024 update:** v4 is out! It decreases dependency count from 13 to 1, removes |
| support for globs, adds support for ESM / Common.js modules, and bumps minimum node.js version from v8 to v14. |
| Check out [upgrading](#upgrading). |
|
|
| ## Getting started |
|
|
| Install with npm: |
|
|
| ```sh |
| npm install chokidar |
| ``` |
|
|
| Use it in your code: |
|
|
| ```javascript |
| import chokidar from 'chokidar'; |
| |
| // One-liner for current directory |
| chokidar.watch('.').on('all', (event, path) => { |
| console.log(event, path); |
| }); |
| |
| |
| // Extended options |
| // ---------------- |
| |
| // Initialize watcher. |
| const watcher = chokidar.watch('file, dir, or array', { |
| ignored: (path, stats) => stats?.isFile() && !path.endsWith('.js'), // only watch js files |
| persistent: true |
| }); |
| |
| // Something to use when events are received. |
| const log = console.log.bind(console); |
| // Add event listeners. |
| watcher |
| .on('add', path => log(`File ${path} has been added`)) |
| .on('change', path => log(`File ${path} has been changed`)) |
| .on('unlink', path => log(`File ${path} has been removed`)); |
| |
| // More possible events. |
| watcher |
| .on('addDir', path => log(`Directory ${path} has been added`)) |
| .on('unlinkDir', path => log(`Directory ${path} has been removed`)) |
| .on('error', error => log(`Watcher error: ${error}`)) |
| .on('ready', () => log('Initial scan complete. Ready for changes')) |
| .on('raw', (event, path, details) => { // internal |
| log('Raw event info:', event, path, details); |
| }); |
| |
| // 'add', 'addDir' and 'change' events also receive stat() results as second |
| // argument when available: https://nodejs.org/api/fs.html#fs_class_fs_stats |
| watcher.on('change', (path, stats) => { |
| if (stats) console.log(`File ${path} changed size to ${stats.size}`); |
| }); |
| |
| // Watch new files. |
| watcher.add('new-file'); |
| watcher.add(['new-file-2', 'new-file-3']); |
| |
| // Get list of actual paths being watched on the filesystem |
| let watchedPaths = watcher.getWatched(); |
| |
| // Un-watch some files. |
| await watcher.unwatch('new-file'); |
| |
| // Stop watching. The method is async! |
| await watcher.close().then(() => console.log('closed')); |
| |
| // Full list of options. See below for descriptions. |
| // Do not use this example! |
| chokidar.watch('file', { |
| persistent: true, |
| |
| // ignore .txt files |
| ignored: (file) => file.endsWith('.txt'), |
| // watch only .txt files |
| // ignored: (file, _stats) => _stats?.isFile() && !file.endsWith('.txt'), |
| |
| awaitWriteFinish: true, // emit single event when chunked writes are completed |
| atomic: true, // emit proper events when "atomic writes" (mv _tmp file) are used |
| |
| // The options also allow specifying custom intervals in ms |
| // awaitWriteFinish: { |
| // stabilityThreshold: 2000, |
| // pollInterval: 100 |
| // }, |
| // atomic: 100, |
| |
| interval: 100, |
| binaryInterval: 300, |
| |
| cwd: '.', |
| depth: 99, |
| |
| followSymlinks: true, |
| ignoreInitial: false, |
| ignorePermissionErrors: false, |
| usePolling: false, |
| alwaysStat: false, |
| }); |
| |
| ``` |
|
|
| `chokidar.watch(paths, [options])` |
|
|
| * `paths` (string or array of strings). Paths to files, dirs to be watched |
| recursively. |
| * `options` (object) Options object as defined below: |
|
|
| #### Persistence |
|
|
| * `persistent` (default: `true`). Indicates whether the process |
| should continue to run as long as files are being watched. |
|
|
| #### Path filtering |
|
|
| * `ignored` function, regex, or path. Defines files/paths to be ignored. |
| The whole relative or absolute path is tested, not just filename. If a function with two arguments |
| is provided, it gets called twice per path - once with a single argument (the path), second |
| time with two arguments (the path and the |
| [`fs.Stats`](https://nodejs.org/api/fs.html#fs_class_fs_stats) |
| object of that path). |
| * `ignoreInitial` (default: `false`). If set to `false` then `add`/`addDir` events are also emitted for matching paths while |
| instantiating the watching as chokidar discovers these file paths (before the `ready` event). |
| * `followSymlinks` (default: `true`). When `false`, only the |
| symlinks themselves will be watched for changes instead of following |
| the link references and bubbling events through the link's path. |
| * `cwd` (no default). The base directory from which watch `paths` are to be |
| derived. Paths emitted with events will be relative to this. |
|
|
| #### Performance |
|
|
| * `usePolling` (default: `false`). |
| Whether to use fs.watchFile (backed by polling), or fs.watch. If polling |
| leads to high CPU utilization, consider setting this to `false`. It is |
| typically necessary to **set this to `true` to successfully watch files over |
| a network**, and it may be necessary to successfully watch files in other |
| non-standard situations. Setting to `true` explicitly on MacOS overrides the |
| `useFsEvents` default. You may also set the CHOKIDAR_USEPOLLING env variable |
| to true (1) or false (0) in order to override this option. |
| * _Polling-specific settings_ (effective when `usePolling: true`) |
| * `interval` (default: `100`). Interval of file system polling, in milliseconds. You may also |
| set the CHOKIDAR_INTERVAL env variable to override this option. |
| * `binaryInterval` (default: `300`). Interval of file system |
| polling for binary files. |
| ([see list of binary extensions](https://github.com/sindresorhus/binary-extensions/blob/master/binary-extensions.json)) |
| * `alwaysStat` (default: `false`). If relying upon the |
| [`fs.Stats`](https://nodejs.org/api/fs.html#fs_class_fs_stats) |
| object that may get passed with `add`, `addDir`, and `change` events, set |
| this to `true` to ensure it is provided even in cases where it wasn't |
| already available from the underlying watch events. |
| * `depth` (default: `undefined`). If set, limits how many levels of |
| subdirectories will be traversed. |
| * `awaitWriteFinish` (default: `false`). |
| By default, the `add` event will fire when a file first appears on disk, before |
| the entire file has been written. Furthermore, in some cases some `change` |
| events will be emitted while the file is being written. In some cases, |
| especially when watching for large files there will be a need to wait for the |
| write operation to finish before responding to a file creation or modification. |
| Setting `awaitWriteFinish` to `true` (or a truthy value) will poll file size, |
| holding its `add` and `change` events until the size does not change for a |
| configurable amount of time. The appropriate duration setting is heavily |
| dependent on the OS and hardware. For accurate detection this parameter should |
| be relatively high, making file watching much less responsive. |
| Use with caution. |
| * *`options.awaitWriteFinish` can be set to an object in order to adjust |
| timing params:* |
| * `awaitWriteFinish.stabilityThreshold` (default: 2000). Amount of time in |
| milliseconds for a file size to remain constant before emitting its event. |
| * `awaitWriteFinish.pollInterval` (default: 100). File size polling interval, in milliseconds. |
| |
| #### Errors |
|
|
| * `ignorePermissionErrors` (default: `false`). Indicates whether to watch files |
| that don't have read permissions if possible. If watching fails due to `EPERM` |
| or `EACCES` with this set to `true`, the errors will be suppressed silently. |
| * `atomic` (default: `true` if `useFsEvents` and `usePolling` are `false`). |
| Automatically filters out artifacts that occur when using editors that use |
| "atomic writes" instead of writing directly to the source file. If a file is |
| re-added within 100 ms of being deleted, Chokidar emits a `change` event |
| rather than `unlink` then `add`. If the default of 100 ms does not work well |
| for you, you can override it by setting `atomic` to a custom value, in |
| milliseconds. |
|
|
| ### Methods & Events |
|
|
| `chokidar.watch()` produces an instance of `FSWatcher`. Methods of `FSWatcher`: |
|
|
| * `.add(path / paths)`: Add files, directories for tracking. |
| Takes an array of strings or just one string. |
| * `.on(event, callback)`: Listen for an FS event. |
| Available events: `add`, `addDir`, `change`, `unlink`, `unlinkDir`, `ready`, |
| `raw`, `error`. |
| Additionally `all` is available which gets emitted with the underlying event |
| name and path for every event other than `ready`, `raw`, and `error`. `raw` is internal, use it carefully. |
| * `.unwatch(path / paths)`: Stop watching files or directories. |
| Takes an array of strings or just one string. |
| * `.close()`: **async** Removes all listeners from watched files. Asynchronous, returns Promise. Use with `await` to ensure bugs don't happen. |
| * `.getWatched()`: Returns an object representing all the paths on the file |
| system being watched by this `FSWatcher` instance. The object's keys are all the |
| directories (using absolute paths unless the `cwd` option was used), and the |
| values are arrays of the names of the items contained in each directory. |
|
|
| ### CLI |
|
|
| Check out third party [chokidar-cli](https://github.com/open-cli-tools/chokidar-cli), |
| which allows to execute a command on each change, or get a stdio stream of change events. |
|
|
| ## Troubleshooting |
|
|
| Sometimes, Chokidar runs out of file handles, causing `EMFILE` and `ENOSP` errors: |
|
|
| * `bash: cannot set terminal process group (-1): Inappropriate ioctl for device bash: no job control in this shell` |
| * `Error: watch /home/ ENOSPC` |
|
|
| There are two things that can cause it. |
|
|
| 1. Exhausted file handles for generic fs operations |
| - Can be solved by using [graceful-fs](https://www.npmjs.com/package/graceful-fs), |
| which can monkey-patch native `fs` module used by chokidar: `let fs = require('fs'); let grfs = require('graceful-fs'); grfs.gracefulify(fs);` |
| - Can also be solved by tuning OS: `echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=524288 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf && sudo sysctl -p`. |
| 2. Exhausted file handles for `fs.watch` |
| - Can't seem to be solved by graceful-fs or OS tuning |
| - It's possible to start using `usePolling: true`, which will switch backend to resource-intensive `fs.watchFile` |
| |
| All fsevents-related issues (`WARN optional dep failed`, `fsevents is not a constructor`) are solved by upgrading to v4+. |
|
|
| ## Changelog |
|
|
| - **v4 (Sep 2024):** remove glob support and bundled fsevents. Decrease dependency count from 13 to 1. Rewrite in typescript. Bumps minimum node.js requirement to v14+ |
| - **v3 (Apr 2019):** massive CPU & RAM consumption improvements; reduces deps / package size by a factor of 17x and bumps Node.js requirement to v8.16+. |
| - **v2 (Dec 2017):** globs are now posix-style-only. Tons of bugfixes. |
| - **v1 (Apr 2015):** glob support, symlink support, tons of bugfixes. Node 0.8+ is supported |
| - **v0.1 (Apr 2012):** Initial release, extracted from [Brunch](https://github.com/brunch/brunch/blob/9847a065aea300da99bd0753f90354cde9de1261/src/helpers.coffee#L66) |
|
|
| ### Upgrading |
|
|
| If you've used globs before and want do replicate the functionality with v4: |
|
|
| ```js |
| // v3 |
| chok.watch('**/*.js'); |
| chok.watch("./directory/**/*"); |
| |
| // v4 |
| chok.watch('.', { |
| ignored: (path, stats) => stats?.isFile() && !path.endsWith('.js'), // only watch js files |
| }); |
| chok.watch('./directory'); |
| |
| // other way |
| import { glob } from 'node:fs/promises'; |
| const watcher = watch(await Array.fromAsync(glob('**/*.js'))); |
| |
| // unwatching |
| // v3 |
| chok.unwatch('**/*.js'); |
| // v4 |
| chok.unwatch(await glob('**/*.js')); |
| ``` |
|
|
| ## Also |
|
|
| Why was chokidar named this way? What's the meaning behind it? |
|
|
| >Chowkidar is a transliteration of a Hindi word meaning 'watchman, gatekeeper', चौकीदार. This ultimately comes from Sanskrit _ चतुष्क_ (crossway, quadrangle, consisting-of-four). This word is also used in other languages like Urdu as (چوکیدار) which is widely used in Pakistan and India. |
|
|
| ## License |
|
|
| MIT (c) Paul Miller (<https://paulmillr.com>), see [LICENSE](LICENSE) file. |
|
|