How do I watch a file for changes?

Question

I have a log file being written by another process which I want to watch for changes. Each time a change occurs I\'d like to read the new data in to do some processing on it

Answer 1

related @4Oh4 solution a smooth change for a list of files to watch;

import os
import sys
import time

class Watcher(object):
    running = True
    refresh_delay_secs = 1

    # Constructor
    def __init__(self, watch_files, call_func_on_change=None, *args, **kwargs):
        self._cached_stamp = 0
        self._cached_stamp_files = {}
        self.filenames = watch_files
        self.call_func_on_change = call_func_on_change
        self.args = args
        self.kwargs = kwargs

    # Look for changes
    def look(self):
        for file in self.filenames:
            stamp = os.stat(file).st_mtime
            if not file in self._cached_stamp_files:
                self._cached_stamp_files[file] = 0
            if stamp != self._cached_stamp_files[file]:
                self._cached_stamp_files[file] = stamp
                # File has changed, so do something...
                file_to_read = open(file, 'r')
                value = file_to_read.read()
                print("value from file", value)
                file_to_read.seek(0)
                if self.call_func_on_change is not None:
                    self.call_func_on_change(*self.args, **self.kwargs)

    # Keep watching in a loop
    def watch(self):
        while self.running:
            try:
                # Look for changes
                time.sleep(self.refresh_delay_secs)
                self.look()
            except KeyboardInterrupt:
                print('\nDone')
                break
            except FileNotFoundError:
                # Action on file not found
                pass
            except Exception as e:
                print(e)
                print('Unhandled error: %s' % sys.exc_info()[0])

# Call this function each time a change happens
def custom_action(text):
    print(text)
    # pass

watch_files = ['/Users/mexekanez/my_file.txt', '/Users/mexekanez/my_file1.txt']

# watcher = Watcher(watch_file)  # simple



if __name__ == "__main__":
    watcher = Watcher(watch_files, custom_action, text='yes, changed')  # also call custom action function
    watcher.watch()  # start the watch going