reload.sh Overview

reload.sh is a shell script for OS-X that aids in refreshing browsers or running tests when files in a monitored directory change. This script is basically a convenience wrapper around fswatch (https://github.com/emcrisostomo/fswatch). It requires fswatch be installed as a dependency. On OS-X, fswatch can be installed via either macports or homebrew:

MacPorts

$ port install fswatch

Homebrew

$ brew install fswatch

reload.sh is designed to be easy to use. Once installed, you can run the script without any arguments and it will prompt you for the name of the directory to monitor and ask whether you want to run a command or refresh specific browsers when files in the monitored directory have changed.

Additionally, watch.sh is provided as a complimentary script to provide a method for auto-running a command when files have been changed in a directory that cannot be directly monitored due to an NFS file share on a (vagrant) VM preventing direct monitoring with fswatch. This workaround is described in Proxy Workaround below.

Supported arguments/features of reload.sh are as follows.

Directory (-d)

Specifies the directory which should be monitored. You will be prompted by the script to enter the directory path, unless a directory is provided via the -d flag:

reload.sh -d /path/to/dir

When the program prompts you to enter a directory, hitting enter without entering a value will automatically use the default. The default is determined by the value of the DEFAULT_DIR shell variable in the script, which you can change to your liking. The default DEFAULT_DIR is '.'

Command (-c)

Specifies the command to run when a change is detected. You will be prompted by the script to enter a command, unless a command is provided via the -c flag:

reload.sh -c 'make test'

When the program prompts you to choose a command, hitting enter without entering a value will automatically use the default. The default is determined by the value of the DEFAULT_CMD shell variable in the script, which you can change to your liking.

If you would like to refresh one or more browsers when files are changed, there are several ways to indicate this. You can enter a 1 when prompted and then choose your browser(s) or you can supply the numeric shortcuts via the -c flag:

This will refresh both chrome and firefox:

reload.sh -c '0,1'

Also, there are named functions for the browser refresh commands which can also be referenced:

reload.sh -c 'reload_safari ; reload_opera'

You can trigger as many browser refreshes as you want. Note that it is only the active tab in each browser that will be reloaded. Full list of supported browser commands:

0 or reload_chrome

1 or reload_firefox

2 or reload_safari

3 or reload_opera

Include (-i)

The include argument allows you to specify a regular expression to limit which files in the given directory can trigger the command. Only files matching the regex will trigger the command. Here is an example:

reload.sh -c 'make test' -d ~/git -i '\.js$'

As a result of supplying the above arguments, file changes to ~/git/widget.js would trigger the "make test" command but file changes to ~/git/README.md would not.

By default, the DEFAULT_INCLUDE_REGEX regular expression is used to only run the configured command when relevant JS, PHP, HTML, etc. files are changed. If you work in Ruby, Java or other languages not yet represented in DEFAULT_INCLUDE_REGEX, you will want to add the desired file extensions into the regex.

Alternately, you can set the ALWAYS_USE_DEFAULT_REGEX value to "0" to modify the behavior to no longer ignore non-matching files by default.

Exclude (-e)

The exclude argument allows you to specify a regular expression to exclude files in the given directory from triggering the command. Only files that do NOT match the regex will trigger the command. Here is an example:

reload.sh -c 'make test' -d ~/git -e '\.js$'

As a result of supplying the above arguments, file changes to ~/git/widget.js would not trigger the "make test" command but file changes to ~/git/README.md would.

It is also possible to set up a default regular expression to be used when the -e flag is passed with an empty argument:

reload.sh -e ''

The above command would use the regular expression defined in the DEFAULT_EXCLUDE_REGEX shell variable in the script, which can be customized to your liking.

Additional Tips

It may be helpful to be able to easily trigger the command at will once reload.sh is already running. This is helpful if you need to rerun a test without having to change any of the test files. For this purpose, the control-c keyboard shortcut will automatically re-run the command (provided the terminal has focus). Since control-c needs to also allow the user to exit reload.sh once it is running, logic was added so that hitting control-c TWICE (within 1 second) will exit the script rather than simply re-run the command again.

Proxy Workaround for NFS/Vagrant/VM directories with watch.sh

Create a file which will be used to proxy between your host OS and your guest OS. This file needs to be outside the directory you want to monitor. Example: touch ~/src/tmp/monitor.file
Run reload.sh on your host OS with a command that updates the file with random contents every time changes in your monitored directory are detected. Example: reload.sh -c 'echo $RANDOM > ~/src/tmp/monitor.file' -d /monitored/directory
Run watch.sh on your guest OS to run the desired command every time the monitored file changes. Example: watch.sh -f '/mounted/src/tmp/monitor.file' -c 'make test'

Note that watch.sh supports the same command-c behavior as reload.sh. It only takes two arguments ("f" for the monitor file and "c" for the command to run) and it will prompt for either if they are not provided directly.

Changelog

2017-06-16:

Added watch.sh to enable proxy monitoring of NFS/Vagrant/VM directories

2016-07-18:

The default option when prompted is now "custom command"
Prior 5 commands from ~/.bash_history are shown as choices in the prompt
Any custom command that is typed in will be manually appended to ~/.bash_history

dan24678/reload