java 7 feature – java watchservice-hello world

java7 introduce a new feature called WatchService. You can now register particular directory in the file system and can trigger any member function based on the event it occurs.

Before the WatchService feature, you need to create a thread continuously watch the file system, and you need to check the last modified time stamp
to get to know what really changed, and maintains the updated files is cumbersome. This will be a boost to lot of file system based operations.

Here is a sample hello world demo demonstrate the File system watch service.

package com.ananth.java7

import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.FileSystems;
import java.nio.file.Path;
import java.nio.file.Paths;
import java.nio.file.WatchEvent;
import java.nio.file.WatchEvent.Kind;
import java.nio.file.WatchKey;
import java.nio.file.WatchService;
import static java.nio.file.StandardWatchEventKinds.*;

public class JavaWatchServiceDemo {
	private Path path = null;
	private WatchService watchService = null;

	private void initialize() {
		path = Paths.get("/home/ananth/test");  // get the directory which needs to be watched.
		try {
			watchService = FileSystems.getDefault().newWatchService();
			path.register(watchService, ENTRY_CREATE, ENTRY_DELETE,
					ENTRY_MODIFY);   // register the watch service on the path. ENTRY_CREATE-register file create event, ENTRY_DELETE=register the delete event, ENTRY_MODIFY- register the file modified event
		} catch (IOException e) {
			System.out.println("IOException"+ e.getMessage());
		}
	}
/**
 * Once it added to the watch list it will start to monitor the changes on the directory 
 */
	private void doMonitor() {
		WatchKey key = null;
		while(true) {  // important - create an indefinite loop to watch the file system changes.
			try {
				key = watchService.take();
				for (WatchEvent event : key.pollEvents()) {
					Kind kind = event.kind();
					System.out.println("Event on " + event.context().toString() + " is " + kind);
				}
			} catch (InterruptedException e) {
				System.out.println("InterruptedException: "+e.getMessage());
			}
			boolean reset = key.reset();
			if(!reset)
				break;
		}
	}

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		JavaWatchServiceDemo watchservicedemo = new JavaWatchServiceDemo();
		watchservicedemo.initialize();
		watchservicedemo.doMonitor();
	}
}