# CompileDaemon

**Repository Path**: mirrors_jeffreydwalter/CompileDaemon

## Basic Information

- **Project Name**: CompileDaemon
- **Description**: Very simple compile daemon for Go
- **Primary Language**: Unknown
- **License**: BSD-2-Clause
- **Default Branch**: master
- **Homepage**: None
- **GVP Project**: No

## Statistics

- **Stars**: 0
- **Forks**: 0
- **Created**: 2022-06-16
- **Last Updated**: 2026-04-04

## Categories & Tags

**Categories**: Uncategorized

**Tags**: None

## README

# Very simple Compile Daemon for Go [![GoDoc](https://godoc.org/github.com/jeffreydwalter/CompileDaemon?status.png)](http://godoc.org/github.com/jeffreydwalter/CompileDaemon)

Watches your .go files in a directory and invokes `go build` if
a file changed. Nothing more.

Usage:

	$ ./CompileDaemon -directory=yourproject/

## Installation

You can use the `go` tool to install `CompileDaemon`:

	go get github.com/jeffreydwalter/CompileDaemon

## Development

You need to use Go 1.11 or higher to build Compile Daemon, and you need to set
the env var `GO111MODULE=on`, which enables you to develop outside of
`$GOPATH/src`.

## Command Line Options

|Option    | Default     | Description|
|--------- | ----------- | -----------|
| | | **actions** |
|`-build=…`   | go build    | Specify the command to run when rebuilding is required.|
|`-command=…` | *none*      | Specify the command to run after a succesful build. The default is to run nothing. This command is issued with the working directory set to -directory.|
| | | **file selection** |
|`-directory=…` | . | Which directory to watch.|
|`-recursive=…` | true      | Recurse down the specified directory|
|`-exclude-dir=…` | none | Do not watch directories matching this glob pattern, e.g. ".git". You may have multiples of this flag.|
|`-exclude=…` | none | Exclude files matching this glob pattern, e.g. ".#*" ignores emacs temporary files. You may have multiples of this flag.|
|`-include=…` | none | Include files whose last path component matches this glob pattern. You may have multiples of this flag.|
|`-pattern=…` | (.+\\.go|.+\\.c)$ | A regular expression which matches the files to watch. The default watches *.go* and *.c* files.|
| | | **file watch** |
|`-polling=…` | false | Use polling instead of FS notifications to detect changes. Default is false
|`-polling-interval=…` | 100 | Milliseconds of interval between polling file changes when polling option is selected
| | | **misc** |
|`-color=_` | false | Colorize the output of the daemon's status messages. |
|`-log-prefix=_` | true | Prefix all child process output with stdout/stderr labels and log timestamps. |
|`-graceful-kill=_`| false | On supported platforms, send the child process a SIGTERM to allow it to exit gracefully if possible. |

## Examples

In its simplest form, the defaults will do. With the current working directory set
to the source directory you can simply…

    $ CompileDaemon

… and it will recompile your code whenever you save a source file.

If you want it to also run your program each time it builds you might add…

    $ CompileDaemon -command="./MyProgram -my-options"

… and it will also keep a copy of your program running. Killing the old one and
starting a new one each time you build.

You may find that you need to exclude some directories and files from
monitoring, such as a .git repository or emacs temporary files…

    $ CompileDaemon -exclude-dir=.git -exclude=".#*" …

If you want to monitor files other than .go and .c files you might…

    $ CompileDaemon -include=Makefile -include="*.less" -include="*.tmpl"

## Common Issues

### Too many open files

If you get an error for too many open files, you might wish to exclude your .git, .hg, or similar VCS directories using `-exclude-dir=…`. This is common on OS X and BSD platforms where each watched file consumes a file descriptor.

If you still have too many open files, then you need to raise your process's file limit using the `ulimit` command. Something like `ulimit -n 1024` will probably take care of it. There is also a sysctl based limit which you may reach and need to adjust.

### `filepath.Walk() no space left on device`

As described in [this issue](https://github.com/jeffreydwalter/CompileDaemon/issues/23) it might happen that you run out of inotify watchers which are limited by your system configuration. Please consider increasing them as is documented [here](https://github.com/guard/listen/wiki/Increasing-the-amount-of-inotify-watchers).

### Docker + Mac OS X

Some issues ([here][1] and [here][2]) report that changes on Docker
volumes under Mac OS X are not reported.

There seem to be issues with either the implementation of the bind file
system mount between Mac OS X hosts and Docker containers or in
`fsnotify/fsnotify` or a combination of both. As long as this is not
resolved, a possible workaround is to use polling:

```
CompileDaemon -polling
```

This will actively watch for changes, so it naturally uses more CPU
resources. You can tune the polling interval to your liking using the
`-polling-interval=N` parameter but be advised: you should never use
this in production as it is simply too wasteful.

[1]: https://github.com/jeffreydwalter/CompileDaemon/issues/44
[2]: https://github.com/jeffreydwalter/CompileDaemon/issues/47

## Project Details

### Credits

CompileDaemon was written by [jeffreydwalter](https://github.com/jeffreydwalter).

Code and documentation was contributed by [jimstudt](https://github.com/jimstudt).

### Repository

CompileDaemon is kept at [https://github.com/jeffreydwalter/CompileDaemon](https://github.com/jeffreydwalter/CompileDaemon)

### License

CompileDaemon is licensed under the [BSD Two Clause License](https://github.com/jeffreydwalter/CompileDaemon/blob/master/LICENSE)