Java 7 WatchService - Ignoring multiple occurrences of the same event

Question

The javadoc for StandardWatchEventKinds.ENTRY_MODIFY says:

Directory entry modified. When a directory is registered for this event the

Answer 1

WatcherServices reports events twice because the underlying file is updated twice. Once for the content and once for the file modified time. These events happen within a short time span. To solve this, sleep between the poll() or take() calls and the key.pollEvents() call. For example:

@Override
@SuppressWarnings( "SleepWhileInLoop" )
public void run() {
  setListening( true );

  while( isListening() ) {
    try {
      final WatchKey key = getWatchService().take();
      final Path path = get( key );

      // Prevent receiving two separate ENTRY_MODIFY events: file modified
      // and timestamp updated. Instead, receive one ENTRY_MODIFY event
      // with two counts.
      Thread.sleep( 50 );

      for( final WatchEvent event : key.pollEvents() ) {
        final Path changed = path.resolve( (Path)event.context() );

        if( event.kind() == ENTRY_MODIFY && isListening( changed ) ) {
          System.out.println( "Changed: " + changed );
        }
      }

      if( !key.reset() ) {
        ignore( path );
      }
    } catch( IOException | InterruptedException ex ) {
      // Stop eavesdropping.
      setListening( false );
    }
  }
}

Calling sleep() helps eliminate the double calls. The delay might have to be as high as three seconds.