How do I watch a file for changes?

Did you try using Watchdog?

Python API library and shell utilities to monitor file system events.

Directory monitoring made easy with

• A cross-platform API.
• A shell tool to run commands in response to directory changes.

Get started quickly with a simple example in Quickstart...

If you want a multiplatform solution, then check QFileSystemWatcher. Here an example code (not sanitized):

from PyQt4 import QtCore

@QtCore.pyqtSlot(str)
def directory_changed(path):
    print('Directory Changed!!!')

@QtCore.pyqtSlot(str)
def file_changed(path):
    print('File Changed!!!')

fs_watcher = QtCore.QFileSystemWatcher(['/path/to/files_1', '/path/to/files_2', '/path/to/files_3'])

fs_watcher.connect(fs_watcher, QtCore.SIGNAL('directoryChanged(QString)'), directory_changed)
fs_watcher.connect(fs_watcher, QtCore.SIGNAL('fileChanged(QString)'), file_changed)

It should not work on windows (maybe with cygwin ?), but for unix user, you should use the "fcntl" system call. Here is an example in Python. It's mostly the same code if you need to write it in C (same function names)

import time
import fcntl
import os
import signal

FNAME = "/HOME/TOTO/FILETOWATCH"

def handler(signum, frame):
    print "File %s modified" % (FNAME,)

signal.signal(signal.SIGIO, handler)
fd = os.open(FNAME,  os.O_RDONLY)
fcntl.fcntl(fd, fcntl.F_SETSIG, 0)
fcntl.fcntl(fd, fcntl.F_NOTIFY,
            fcntl.DN_MODIFY | fcntl.DN_CREATE | fcntl.DN_MULTISHOT)

while True:
    time.sleep(10000)

If polling is good enough for you, I'd just watch if the "modified time" file stat changes. To read it:

os.stat(filename).st_mtime

(Also note that the Windows native change event solution does not work in all circumstances, e.g. on network drives.)

import os

class Monkey(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self._cached_stamp = 0
        self.filename = '/path/to/file'

    def ook(self):
        stamp = os.stat(self.filename).st_mtime
        if stamp != self._cached_stamp:
            self._cached_stamp = stamp
            # File has changed, so do something...