pyreload

Run commands when files change

pyreload is a <100 line python script: reload.py

When run, it watches a directory for changes to files and run commands

The intended use of pyreload is in a git repo for a software.

For config options, pyreload reads a json file, by default reload.json located in the same directory as the script:

{
    "root_dir": ".",
    "commands": {
        "pre": [],
        "structure": [],
        "all": []
    },
    "delay_seconds": 0.005,
    "exit_on_error": false,
    "clear_screen": true,
    "use_gitignore": true
}

Usage

The script can be run optionally with a path to a json config file

Json Options:

• root_dir is the working directory in which to recursively look for files, by default the current directory of the shell instance
• commands is an object whose keys are events and whose values are lists of commands to be run when that event occurs:
  • pre commands run once at the start of the script, eg cmake -B build or cmake --preset=dev
  • structure commands run when the file structure changes, ie on adding, deleting, or removing files, eg cmake -B build
  • all commands run on structure changes, or when existing files are modified, eg cmake --build build or make
• delay_seconds is a duration in seconds to wait for during every iteration, before checking files
• exit_on_error: if an error occurs when running a command, throw a python exception and quit, by default false
• clear_screen: clear the terminal screen before running commands, by default true
• use_gitignore: find files using git, requires root_dir to be a git repo, by default true

Installation

Just copy reload.py and reload.json into a directory in your project.

Examples

• CMake:

  {
      "commands": {
          "pre": ["cmake -B ./build"],
          "structure": ["cmake -B ./build"],
          "all": ["cmake --build ./build"]
      }
  }