Perl in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Win32::ChangeNotify

This module provides access to Win32 change-notification objects, letting you monitor events relating to files and directory trees. The constructor for this class is new, which creates a ChangeNotify object for a specified path and indicates how it should be monitored:

$ntfy = Win32::ChangeNotify->new(path, subtree, events);
$ntfy->wait or warn "Something has failed: $!");

The function returns a reference to the object as $ntfy. path is the pathname of the directory to monitor. subtree is a Boolean value that, if true, forces the object to monitor all subdirectories of the object’s path. The eventsparameter indicates the type of events that will trigger a notification. It can be one of the following string values:

Value	Description
ATTRIBUTES	Any attribute change
DIR_NAME	Any directory name change
FILE_NAME	Any filename change (creating/deleting/renaming)
LAST_WRITE	Any change to a file’s last write time
SECURITY	Any security descriptor change
SIZE	Any change in a file’s size

The following methods are used on notification objects created by new.