inotify_add_watch

Add a watch to a notify file descriptor.

Declaration

Source position: linux.pp line 463

Description

inotify_add_watch can be used to add a watch to an initialized inotify file descriptor (fd). The file or directory to watch can be specified in the name parameter, and the events that must be reported can be specified in mask. The following flags can be specified:

IN_ACCESS

Data was read from file.

IN_MODIFY

Data was written to file.

IN_ATTRIB

File attributes changed.

IN_CLOSE_WRITE

File opened for write was closed

IN_CLOSE_NOWRITE

File opened for read was closed

IN_CLOSE

File was closed (read or write)

IN_OPEN

File was opened

IN_MOVED_FROM

File was moved away from watched directory

IN_MOVED_TO

File was moved into watched directory

IN_MOVE

File was moved (in or out of directory)

IN_CREATE

A file was created in the directory.

IN_DELETE

A file was deleted from the directory.

IN_DELETE_SELF

Directory or file under observation was deleted.

IN_MOVE_SELF

Directory or file under observation was moved.

IN_ALL_EVENTS

All possible events OR-ed together.

These events can be OR-ed with some flags, controlling the behaviour of the watch:

IN_ONLYDIR

Only watch filename if it is a directory.

IN_ISDIR

Event occurred against directory.

IN_DONT_FOLLOW

Do not follow symlinks

IN_MASK_ADD

Add events to existing watch (OR-ing the sets) if one exists.

IN_ONESHOT

Only report one event, then remove the watch.

On return, the function returns a watch descriptor, which will be reported in the inotify_event structure's wd.

Errors

On Error, -1 is returned. fpgeterrno can be used to get more detailed error information.

See also