Simple debounced file watcher

Simple debounced file watcher. Uses Chokidar. This does not queue events, it simply rate limits them.

NOTE: No tests have been written yet!

Installation

yarn install. Or npm install. Or just copy the files to your own project.

Usage

Specify either a folder or a glob. You can specify options or an empty object. It returns the chokidar instance, so you can close it at a later time.

const watch = require('@eklingen/watch-debounced')
const watcher = watch('folder-or-glob/**/*', {}, (event, path) => yourCallback(event, path))
...
watcher.close()

The callback yourCallback is called with the following arguments:

• event string (example: 'change')
  • all events
• path string (example: /Users/batman/my/secret/stash.zip)
  • all events, except ready and error
• stats or details string (optional)
  • only change or raw events
• error object
  • only error event

The raw event is internal to chokidar and may change at any moment.

Options

There are a few options.

delay

Set a delay in millisecond before the timeout resets. Default is 250.

watch('my-stuff/', {
  delay: 250
}, () => yourCallback())

events

The events to watch for. Default is [ 'add', 'change', 'unlink' ]. For more events, see the "chokidar" documentation.

watch('my-stuff/', {
  events: [ 'add', 'change', 'unlink' ]
}, () => yourCallback())

fireFirst and fireLast

If fireFirst is set, the callback is triggered separately before the debounce. Default is false. If fireLast is set, the callback is triggered after the debounce. Default is true. Enabling both is possible, disabling both is useless.

watch('my-stuff/', {
  fireFirst: false,
  fireLast: true
}, () => yourCallback())

chokidarOptions

This object is passed verbatim to chokidar. For all options, see the "chokidar" documentation.

Dependencies

This package requires "chokidar".

Copyright (c) 2019 Elco Klingen. MIT License.