Question

I have an application in which I want to listen to any changes made to a particular directory. The application should ping me as soon as there are any files added, deleted or updated in that directory.

Answer 1

You can use JNotify

JNotify is a java library that allow java application to listen to file
system events, such as: File created
File modified File renamed File
deleted Supported platforms

Windows (2000 or newer) Windows notes
Linux with INofity support (2.6.14 or
newer) Linux notes Mac OS X (10.5 or
newer) Mac OS notes

More Info :

Download JNotify from here

Extract the zip, put .dll/.so according to platform in your lib path. and create a class provide jnotify-0.93.jar in class path.

Sample code:

package org.life.java.stackoverflow.questions;

import net.contentobjects.jnotify.JNotify;
import net.contentobjects.jnotify.JNotifyListener;

/**
 *
 * @author Jigar
 */
public class JNotifyDemo {

    public void sample() throws Exception {
        // path to watch
        String path = System.getProperty("user.home");

        // watch mask, specify events you care about,
        // or JNotify.FILE_ANY for all events.
        int mask = JNotify.FILE_CREATED
                | JNotify.FILE_DELETED
                | JNotify.FILE_MODIFIED
                | JNotify.FILE_RENAMED;

        // watch subtree?
        boolean watchSubtree = true;

        // add actual watch
        int watchID = JNotify.addWatch(path, mask, watchSubtree, new Listener());

        // sleep a little, the application will exit if you
        // don't (watching is asynchronous), depending on your
        // application, this may not be required
        Thread.sleep(1000000);

        // to remove watch the watch
        boolean res = JNotify.removeWatch(watchID);
        if (!res) {
            // invalid watch ID specified.
        }
    }

    class Listener implements JNotifyListener {

        public void fileRenamed(int wd, String rootPath, String oldName,
                String newName) {
            print("renamed " + rootPath + " : " + oldName + " -> " + newName);
        }

        public void fileModified(int wd, String rootPath, String name) {
            print("modified " + rootPath + " : " + name);
        }

        public void fileDeleted(int wd, String rootPath, String name) {
            print("deleted " + rootPath + " : " + name);
        }

        public void fileCreated(int wd, String rootPath, String name) {
            print("created " + rootPath + " : " + name);
        }

        void print(String msg) {
            System.err.println(msg);
        }
    }
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        new JNotifyDemo().sample();
    }
}

Output:

modified C:\Documents and Settings\jigar: LOCALS~1\Temp\etilqs_4s8ywsvyukghK0uDxRop
modified C:\Documents and Settings\jigar : LOCALS~1\Temp\etilqs_4s8ywsvyukghK0uDxRop
modified C:\Documents and Settings\jigar : LOCALS~1\Temp\output1295531079119
modified C:\Documents and Settings\jigar : Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default
deleted C:\Documents and Settings\jigar : Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cache\f_001ea9
created C:\Documents and Settings\jigar : Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cache\f_001eae
modified C:\Documents and Settings\jigar : LOCALS~1\Temp\etilqs_04gchL79ZJrpClZIqiom
modified C:\Documents and Settings\jigar : LOCALS~1\Temp\etilqs_04gchL79ZJrpClZIqiom
modified C:\Documents and Settings\jigar : Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cache
modified C:\Documents and Settings\jigar : Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cache\f_001eae
modified C:\Documents and Settings\jigar : Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cache\f_001eae
modified C:\Documents and Settings\jigar : LOCALS~1\Temp\output1295531079119
modified C:\Documents and Settings\jigar : Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Current Session
deleted C:\Documents and Settings\jigar : Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cache\f_001ea8
created C:\Documents and Settings\jigar : Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cache\f_001eaf
modified C:\Documents and Settings\jigar : Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cache
modified C:\Documents and Settings\jigar : LOCALS~1\Temp\etilqs_04gchL79ZJrpClZIqiom
modified C:\Documents and Settings\jigar : LOCALS~1\Temp\etilqs_04gchL79ZJrpClZIqiom
modified C:\Documents and Settings\jigar : Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cache\f_001eaf
modified C:\Documents and Settings\jigar : Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cache\f_001eaf