[Development] QFileSystemWatcher in WIndows

Robin Burchell robin+qt at viroteck.net
Sun Jan 22 13:28:29 CET 2012


Hi Vadim,
(I'm CCing this to the Qt development mailing list, since it'srelevant
for everyone there. Sorry that you got two copies, I used the wrong
address the first time.)
On Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 2:20 PM, Vadim Frolov <fralik at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Robin,
>
> I have just read your post about QFileSystemWatcher. I used it in one of my
> projects where I needed to be notified about changes in any file (any
> subfolder) given some path. To be clear I am talking about Qt 4.x
> experience. The behaviour in Linux/Mac is different from Windows. In Linux
> it is possible to provide a single path and receive notifications about
> changes to any file. In Windows one need to add each file/directory
> independently or... call FindFirstChangeNotification with different set of
> flags. I find it better that the behaviour of a QFileSystemWatcher is the
> same across the systems. I coded my changes in a modified class (not the
> elegant solution, but quick), which is available at
> https://github.com/fralik/Easysync/tree/master/client/qt .
>
> So if you are modifying QFileSystemWatcher, you could consider this issue.
>
> Best regards,
> Vadim.

If you're interested in contributing this to Qt, I'm sure that it
would be welcome, since of course, things should work the same on all
platforms. I would have difficulty doing this change myself, as I
don't have a Windows machine to test compilation on, let alone verify
behaviour. I'm sure there's lots of people (myself included) who would
be more than happy to help you get set up and answer any questions you
have on processes etc, and there are people who know Windows a lot
better than myself who would probably be capable of reviewing the
code.

If you're interested in getting started, taking a look at the wiki
(http://wiki.qt-project.org) and specifically
http://wiki.qt-project.org/Code_Reviews is a good idea.

I seem to recall, hopefully correctly, that John Brooks (also on list)
actually started prototyping using FirstChangeNotification some months
ago; I'm not sure what became of that effort, but perhaps he would
have some advice to be able to offer you in that process.

Best regards,

Robin



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