How Can I Detect File Changes in Go in a Cross-Platform Way?

Detect File Changing in Go: A Practical Solution

The Go language provides extensive capabilities for file handling, but detecting file changes is not as straightforward as in Unix systems. To address this, let's explore a cross-platform approach that leverages the os package.

Detecting File Changes

The os package offers a convenient way to obtain file attributes, including its size and last modification time. By comparing these attributes periodically, you can identify when a file has been altered.

The following code snippet demonstrates how to implement file change detection:

func watchFile(filePath string) error {
    initialStat, err := os.Stat(filePath)
    if err != nil {
        return err
    }

    for {
        stat, err := os.Stat(filePath)
        if err != nil {
            return err
        }

        if stat.Size() != initialStat.Size() || stat.ModTime() != initialStat.ModTime() {
            break
        }

        time.Sleep(1 * time.Second)
    }

    return nil
}

Usage and Considerations

To use this function, simply pass the path to the file you want to monitor. The function will continuously check the file's attributes and notify you when it detects changes. Here's an example usage:

doneChan := make(chan bool)

go func(doneChan chan bool) {
    defer func() { doneChan <- true }()
    err := watchFile("/path/to/file")
    if err != nil { fmt.Println(err) }

    fmt.Println("File has been changed")
}(doneChan)

<-doneChan

While this approach is not as efficient as system calls like fcntl(), it is simple and works reliably across platforms. It can be particularly useful when you don't have access to low-level system functions.

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