Looking at a directory to check for changes

[tjcusick]

I'm using Delphi 7.
I'm just not sure where to start with this one. A co-worker comes to me and says "I want to monitor a directory and when all the files get put in there I want to create a txt file with all the file names and directory path in it."

So I'm thinking first i need to monitor the directory with maybe a timer, like check it every 3-5 minutes, and would have to compare the file names and sizes, (in a tstring maybe) to see if they are still changing and when they are no longer changing then I could start creating the txt file with a listing of all the files in that directory (with directory path)...

Does that sound reasonable?

Next question is how would i go about monitoring the directory?

Any/All suggestions are welcome...

Thanks

Tom Cusick

 

[TonHu]

You can register an eventhandler that gets called by the OS when a file changes in a/some specified location, I even found some util that can do specific tasks when that happens. Can't remember the name though (> 5 years ago) Google could help you I guess...

HTH
TonHu

 

[DelphiAaron]

i havent tried it just found it on the net.

Detect changings of a directory
Use FindFirstChangeNotification function for detecting of changing (creating/removing) directory.

procedure TForm1.Timer1Timer(Sender: TObject);
var
  Dir: string;
begin
  Dir:=Edit1.Text;
  if FindFirstChangeNotification(
       PChar(Dir),
       False,
       FILE_NOTIFY_CHANGE_DIR_NAME)<>INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE then
    Label1.Caption:=Dir+' directory presents'
  else
    Label1.Caption:=Dir+' directory absents';
end;

Return all files in directory
Use SearchFiles procedure. You should specify a directory, and after that, this function returns a list of files in this folder.
Main moments are FindFirst and FindNext functions.

procedure TForm1.SearchFiles(St: string);
var
  MySearch: TSearchRec;
  FindResult: Integer;
begin
  FindResult:=FindFirst(St+'\*.*', faAnyFile, MySearch);
  if (MySearch.Name<>'.')and(MySearch.Name<>'..') then
    Memo1.Lines.Add(MySearch.Name);
  while FindNext(MySearch)=0 do
  begin
    if (MySearch.Attr<>faDirectory)and
      (MySearch.Name<>'.')and
      (MySearch.Name<>'..') then
      Memo1.Lines.Add(MySearch.Name);
  end;
end;

Aaron