File Watchers

Create a File Watcher

1. In the Settings/Preferences dialog (Ctrl+Alt+S), click File Watchers under Tools. The File Watchers page opens showing a list of File Watchers that are already configured in this project and in the IDE.

2. Click and choose the predefined template from which you want to create a File Watcher. The choice depends on the tool you are going to use. To use a tool that is not on the list, choose Custom. The New Watcher dialog box opens.

3. In the Name text box, type the name of the File Watcher. By default, CLion suggests the name of the selected predefined template.

1. From the File type drop-down list, choose the expected type of input files. The File Watcher will consider only files of this type as subject for analyzing and processing. File types are recognised based on associations between file types and file extensions.

2. Choose the Scope in which the File Watcher is applicable. Changes in these files will invoke the File Watcher either immediately or upon save or frame deactivation, depending on the status of the Auto-save edited files to trigger the watcher checkbox.

   Choose one of the predefined scopes from the drop-down list. For a project-level File Watcher, you can also click to configure a custom scope in the Scopes dialog that opens.

   • All Places: all the scopes listed below.

   • Project Files: all the files within the project roots.

   • Scratches and Consoles: all the files from the Scratches and Consoles directory located in the Project tool window.

   • Open Files: all the files that are currently opened in the editor.

   • Current File: the file opened in the active editor tab.

   Alternatively, click Browse and configure a custom scope in the Scopes dialog box that opens.

3. Optionally: specify how you want the File Watcher to deal with dependencies. A root file is a file that is not included (e.g. via import) in any other file within the specified scope.

   • To run the File Watcher only against root files, select the Track only root files checkbox.

   • Clear the checkbox to run the File Watcher against the file from which it is invoked and against all the files in which this file is recursively included within the specified scope.

   Note that the Scope setting overrides the Track only root files checkbox setting: if a dependency is outside the specified scope, the File Watcher is not applied to it.

1. In the Program text box, specify the path to the executable file of the tool (.exe, .cmd, .bat, or other depending on the specific tool).

   If you are configuring a global file watcher for a tool installed inside a project (e.g. Prettier), you need to specify the path to it using a macro. To use one of the available macros in the path, press the Insert Macro button. For example, with the path $ProjectFileDir$/node_modules/.bin/prettier, the File Watcher will use prettier installed in the project’s node_module folder.

2. In the Arguments text box, define the arguments to pass to the tool. Arguments are usually specified using macros, for example, $FileName$ or $FileNameWithoutExtension$, that will be replaced with actual file names.
   Type the macros manually or click Insert Macro and select the relevant pattern fom the list in the Macros dialog that opens.

3. In the Output paths to refresh text box, specify the files where the tool stores its output: the resulting source code, source maps, and dependencies. Based on these settings, CLion recognizes the files generated through compilation.

   Please note, that changing the value in the Output paths to refresh text box does not make the tool store its output in another place. If you still need to do that, specify the desired custom output location in the Arguments text box: type the output paths with colons as separators and use macros.

   Output paths are usually specified using macros. Type the path manually o click Insert Macro and select the relevant pattern from the list.

4. Expand the Working Directory and Environment Variables hidden area.

5. Define the environment variables. For example, specify the PATH variable for the tools that are required for starting the tool you are configuring but are not referenced in the path to it. In most cases it is Node.js or ruby.exe. Such situation may result from custom manual installation instead of installation through the Node Package Manager (npm) or gem manager.

6. In the Working Directory text box, specify the directory to which the tool will be applied.
   Because the tool is always invoked in the context of a file, the default working directory is the directory of the current file. The default working directory is specified in all predefined templates through a $FileDir$ macros. To specify a custom working directory, type the path to it in the text box, or click and choose the directory in the Select Path dialog box, or click Insert Macro and select the desired macro from the list in the Macros dialog box.

1. Specify the events that will invoke the File Watcher:

   • To invoke the File Watcher as soon as any changes are made to the source code, select the Auto-save edited files to trigger the watcher checkbox.
     When the checkbox is cleared, the File Watcher starts upon save (File | Save All) or when you move the focus from CLion (on frame deactivation).

   • By default, the File Watcher wakes up on any saved change, including the updates received from you version control system when you, for example, check out a branch. To ignore such changes and invoke the File Watcher only you update your code in CLion, clear the Trigger the watcher on external changes checkbox.

2. Specify whether you want the File Watcher to interact with the CLion syntax parser:

   • When the Trigger watcher regardless of syntax errors checkbox is selected, the File Watcher start regardless of the syntactical correctness of a file. The File Watcher will start upon update, save, or frame deactivation, depending on the status of the Auto-save edited files to trigger the watcher checkbox.

   • When the Trigger watcher regardless of syntax errors checkbox is cleared, the File Watcher ignores all triggers in files that are syntactically invalid and starts only in error-free files.

3. Use the Create output file from stdout checkbox to specify how you want to generate the output file.

   • When the checkbox is selected, CLion reads the native tool's output (standard output stream (stdout)) and generates the resulting files from it.

   • When the checkbox is cleared, the tool writes its output directly to the files specified in the Output paths to refresh field.

4. In the Show console drop-down list, choose when you want the File Watcher to open the console.

   • Always: with this option, the console always opens after the tool execution is completed.

   • On error: with this option, the console opens after the tool execution only when the Exit code is different from 0.

   • Never: choose this option to suppress opening the console at all.

1. Create a compilation database

• First of all, we need to create a JSON compilation database for our test project. The tool we'll use for this is compiledb-generator. Having installed the tool, we can run compiledb make from the project root and get the compile_commands.json file:

  

2. Install the Makefile Support plugin

• This is an optional step, yet quite helpful for our task: with the Makefile Support plugin installed, the GNU Makefile file type becomes recognizable in CLion, and we get the syntax highlighting and editing features for the Makefiles.

3. Open and configure the compilation database in CLion

• The next step is to open the compilation database that we created in step 1 as a project in CLion. After the import has finished successfully, we can start working with the project files.

  

  To have the project automatically reloaded upon every change in compile_command.json, we need to set the Use auto-import checkbox in Settings / Preferences | Build, Execution, Deployment | Compilation Database:

  

4. Create a File Watcher for the Makefiles

• Now we can create a File Watcher to follow up the changes in the Makefiles. Let's navigate to Settings / Preferences | Tools | File Watchers, create a new File Watcher and assign it to all the files of GNU Makefile type located in the project root and subdirectories (note the $ProjectFileDir$ macro):

  

5. Modify the Makefiles

• Now, let's change something in our Makefiles. We can do this outside the IDE (since the Trigger the watcher on external changes checkbox is set), or right from the CLion editor.

  For example, we can add a new source file to the math_lib module and put it to the list of sources in the corresponding Makefile:

  

  Right after that change, the Makefile_watcher is triggered to run compiledb -n make. This command regenerates the compilation database without performing the actual build, and CLion automatically reloads it so the project gets synchronized with the modified Makefile.

  Now there are four entries in compile_commands.json:

  

  Similarly, if we then decide not to include the io_funcs library into the build, we can remove the Io target from the main Makefile:

  TARGETS = Math General
  In response to this change, the Makefile_watcher triggers again, and the compilation database gets reloaded accordingly:

  

6. Make the File Watcher global

• The final thing that we might want to do is make the Makefile_watcher global. With this setting enabled, the watcher becomes available across all projects so we'll easily reuse it for other Makefile applications that we manage in CLion: