Package detailsv1.2.1

watcher

A file system watcher. It monitors changes to contents of directories and sends notifications when files have been added, removed, or modified.

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pub.dev API documentation Source code

30-day downloads: 14.7M
Likes: 247
Pub points: 150

Install package

flutter pub add watcher

Package Overview

Package selection guidance compiled from public package information, community data, and project usage.

The watcher package provides a cross-platform file system monitoring solution for Dart and Flutter applications. It efficiently tracks changes to directories, including file additions, removals, and modifications, and delivers real-time notifications. Built for performance and reliability, it supports all major platforms—Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, and Linux—making it ideal for development tools, live-reload systems, and file synchronization features. The package integrates seamlessly with Flutter via pub dependencies.

Use cases

Live-reload during development
File synchronization services
Automated build processes
Real-time file monitoring in apps
Development tooling

Key features

Cross-platform support
Real-time change notifications
Efficient file system polling
Simple API for directory monitoring
Lightweight and reliable

Suitable for

Flutter developers building dev tools
Applications requiring file system event handling
Build and watch scripts
Hot reload implementations
File-based automation workflows

Considerations

May consume system resources on large directories
Requires proper cleanup of watchers to avoid leaks
Platform-specific behavior may vary slightly
Not intended for high-frequency polling without throttling
Limited to file system events, not network or database changes

Original README

Original README snapshot from the linked source repository. Visit the repository for the latest content.

Overview

This repository is home to tooling related Dart packages. Generally, this means packages published through the tools.dart.dev publisher that don't naturally belong to other topic monorepos (like dart-lang/build, dart-lang/test, or dart-lang/shelf).

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watcher	A file system watcher. It monitors changes to contents of directories and sends notifications when files have been added, removed, or modified.
yaml	A parser for YAML, a human-friendly data serialization standard
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