Question

I’m writing a bash script, and I’d like to monitor file changes into a directory (adding, deleting and renaming) and performing different action accordingly.

Is there a way to do that directly from my script (aside from periodically ls the directory and make diffs)?

Answer 1

You can use the inotifywait command (assuming your distribution supports inotify, which most do):

inotifywait -m -r --format '%f' -e modify -e move -e create -e delete ~/test | while read line
do
    echo "File: $line"
done