jpathwatch

jpathwatch allows to monitor directories for changes to their contents so that file creation, deletion or modification are reported as events. On supported platforms, jpathwatch operates directly on the native OS' file watching APIs; therefore it does not poll and won't waste system resources.

This is the reference documentation for jpathwatch. Visit the jpathwatch Website for general information and a information on how to get started.

Instead of a custom interface, jpathwatch adopts the WatchService interface defined in the upcoming JDK7. This way, jpathwatch makes file watching available to Java 5 and Java 6 applications, while remaining source compatible to Java 7.

Compared to JDK7's implementation, jpathwatch adds some extra features and also supports MacOS X as well as FreeBSD

Although jpathwatch uses native libraries to communicate with the host OS directly, special configuration to load these libraries is not required, because they are packaged directly in the jpathwatch's JAR file and extracted and loaded on demand. This greatly simplifies development and deployment; jpathwatch can be used like any other pure Java library. The fact that it is based on native code is entirely hidden from the user.