Watchdog does not detect file content change on shared folder

[SrikanthMohankumar]

Hi,

let you know that I recently tried your module and it’s working like a breeze! Thank you for developing such a useful tool.

I do have one question, though. I installed LuaLaTeX, Python, and the tex-fast-recompile module on my linux server, and placed the sample.tex file in a common shared path. When I edit the file on another windows system, nothing happens with the compilation. However, if I edit the file directly on the server, it works fine. Do you have any suggestions for how to overcome this issue?

[user202729]

The file detection change is handled by the Python watchdog module (relevant code), maybe that can be inspected.

(I believe latexmk etc. uses a more inefficient but guaranteed way to check for file changed, namely re-read the file every X seconds. Of course, for good performance in this case, the checking cost would be relatively prohibitive)

$sleep_time = 2;        # time to sleep b/w checks for file changes in -pvc mode

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Edit: Okay I can reproduce the issue.

There's some relevant information in https://github.com/gorakhargosh/watchdog/issues/504 or https://github.com/gorakhargosh/watchdog/issues/135 etc.

[SrikanthMohankumar]

Thank you for your prompt response and for providing information about the issue. I have read the relevant information in the links you provided and appreciate your help in trying to resolve this issue.

I was wondering if you have any further suggestions or solutions to overcome this issue? Would changing the $sleep_time variable to a smaller value help in detecting file changes more efficiently?

Thanks.

[user202729]

I've implemented a new flag --polling-duration for this use case, read the help for more details.

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Ideally the program could run both observers in parallel, with the PollingObserver at a slow rate, and warn the user if the second fires without the first, but that may be left for later.

[SrikanthMohankumar]

Oh, Great! Thanks.