File & Folder Watcher

This extension allows configuring commands that get run whenever a file is saved or folder is changed in vscode.

Features

• Following two events: onSaveDocument and onFolderChange:
  • onFileChange - allows to track changes to the contents of an existing file
  • onFolderChange - allows to track the deletion, addition and modification of files
• case insensitive workspace root folder
• Configure multiple commands that run when the event happened
• Regex pattern matching for files that trigger commands running
• Sync and async support

Configuration

Add "filewatcher" configuration to user or workspace settings.

• "shell" - (optional) shell path to be used with child_process.exec options that runs commands.
• "autoClearConsole" - (optional) clear VSCode output console every time commands run. Defaults to false.
• "commands" - array of commands that will be run whenever a file is saved.
  • "match" - a regex for matching which files to run commands on.
  • "notMatch" - a regex for matching files not to run commands on.

  NOTE Since this is a Regex, and also in a JSON string backslashes have to be double escaped such as when targetting folders. e.g. "match": "some\\folder\\.*"

  • "cmd" - command to run. Can include parameters that will be replaced at runtime (see Placeholder Tokens section below).
  • "isAsync" (optional) - defaults to false. If true, next command will be run before this one finishes.

Placeholder Tokens

Commands support placeholders similar to tasks.json.

• ${workspaceRoot}: case insensitive workspace root folder
• ${file}: path of saved file
• ${fileBasename}: saved file's basename
• ${fileDirname}: directory name of saved file
• ${fileExtname}: extension (including .) of saved file
• ${fileBasenameNoExt}: saved file's basename without extension

Samples

File content change tracking example. Configuration in .vscode\settings.json

{
	"filewatcher.commands": [
		{
			"match": "\\.ts*",
			"isAsync": true,
			"cmd": "echo '${file} file content Changed'",
			"event": "onFileChange"
		}		
	]
}

Folder content change tracking example. Configuration in .vscode\settings.json

{
	"filewatcher.commands": [
		{
			"match": "\\.*",
			"isAsync": true,
			"cmd": "echo '${file} folder content Changed'",
			"event": "onFolderChange"
		}		
	]
}