If you want to install GCC 9 on your macOS check this article. Please note that, at the time this writing, Apple’s Clang from Xcode 10 or the Command Line Tools doesn’t support the std::filesystem library. Here is an example of compiling a C++ program that uses std::filesystem with GCC: 1 g++ -std=c++17 -Wall -Wextra -pedantic test_fs_watcher.cpp -o test_fs_watcherĬlang 8: 1 clang++ -std=c++17 -stdlib=libc++ -Wall -Wextra -pedantic test_fs_watcher.cpp -o test_fs_watcher -lc++fsĬlang 9 and up: 1 clang++ -std=c++17 -stdlib=libc++ -Wall -Wextra -pedantic test_fs_watcher.cpp -o test_fs_watcher If you want the ultimate performance, you should try to use the operating system functions like inotify on Linux or kqueue on macOS and FreeBSD.Īt the time of this writing, you can use the C++17 std::filesystem library with GCC 9, Clang 7 and MSVC 2017. The code was written as an exercise or demo to show what you can do with the C++17 std::filesystem library. The base folder will be checked for changes at regular time intervals and, in case of changes, we’ll run a user defined function.ĭisclaimer: The code presented in this article is not meant to be used as is in production. For our limited purposes, we’ll monitor only the creation, modification and deletion of all files from the watched directory. We are going to implement a C++17 file watcher that will monitor a given folder for file changes. The advantage of using the C++17 std::filesystem library is that your code will be portable on all operating systems for which a C++17 compiler is available. In this article I will show you how to use the C++17 std::filesystem library to write a simple file watcher or file monitor. Solarian Programmer My programming ramblings Home Archives Contact Privacy C++17 Filesystem - Writing a simple file watcher Posted on Januby Paul

Process monitor filter file creation