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# fsevents [![NPM](https://nodei.co/npm/fsevents.png)](https://nodei.co/npm/fsevents/)
Native access to MacOS FSEvents in [Node.js](https://nodejs.org/)
The FSEvents API in MacOS allows applications to register for notifications of
changes to a given directory tree. It is a very fast and lightweight alternative
to kqueue.
This is a low-level library. For a cross-platform file watching module that
uses fsevents, check out [Chokidar](https://github.com/paulmillr/chokidar).
## Installation
Supports only **Node.js v8.16 and higher**.
```sh
npm install fsevents
```
## Usage
```js
const fsevents = require('fsevents');
const stop = fsevents.watch(__dirname, (path, flags, id) => {
const info = fsevents.getInfo(path, flags, id);
}); // To start observation
stop(); // To end observation
```
The callback passed as the second parameter to `.watch` get's called whenever the operating system detects a
a change in the file system. It takes three arguments:
###### `fsevents.watch(dirname: string, (path: string, flags: number, id: string) => void): () => Promise<undefined>`
* `path: string` - the item in the filesystem that have been changed
* `flags: number` - a numeric value describing what the change was
* `id: string` - an unique-id identifying this specific event
Returns closer callback which when called returns a Promise resolving when the watcher process has been shut down.
###### `fsevents.getInfo(path: string, flags: number, id: string): FsEventInfo`
The `getInfo` function takes the `path`, `flags` and `id` arguments and converts those parameters into a structure
that is easier to digest to determine what the change was.
The `FsEventsInfo` has the following shape:
```js
/**
* @typedef {'created'|'modified'|'deleted'|'moved'|'root-changed'|'cloned'|'unknown'} FsEventsEvent
* @typedef {'file'|'directory'|'symlink'} FsEventsType
*/
{
"event": "created", // {FsEventsEvent}
"path": "file.txt",
"type": "file", // {FsEventsType}
"changes": {
"inode": true, // Had iNode Meta-Information changed
"finder": false, // Had Finder Meta-Data changed
"access": false, // Had access permissions changed
"xattrs": false // Had xAttributes changed
},
"flags": 0x100000000
}
```
## Changelog
- v2.3 supports Apple Silicon ARM CPUs
- v2 supports node 8.16+ and reduces package size massively
- v1.2.8 supports node 6+
- v1.2.7 supports node 4+
## Troubleshooting
- I'm getting `EBADPLATFORM` `Unsupported platform for fsevents` error.
- It's fine, nothing is broken. fsevents is macos-only. Other platforms are skipped. If you want to hide this warning, report a bug to NPM bugtracker asking them to hide ebadplatform warnings by default.
## License
The MIT License Copyright (C) 2010-2020 by Philipp Dunkel, Ben Noordhuis, Elan Shankar, Paul Miller — see LICENSE file.
Visit our [GitHub page](https://github.com/fsevents/fsevents) and [NPM Page](https://npmjs.org/package/fsevents)