Does anyone have a FileSystemWatcher-like class in C++/WinAPI?

Question

I need a .Net's FileSystemWatcher analog in raw C++/WinAPI. I almost started to code one myself using FindFirstChangeNotification/FindNextChangeNotification, but then it occurred to me that I am probably not the first one who needs this and maybe someone will be willing to share.

Ideally what I need is a class which can be used as follows:

FileWatcher fw;
fw.startWatching("C:\MYDIR", "filename.dat", 
     FileWatcher::SIZE | FileWatcher::LAST_WRITE,
     &myChangeHandler);
...
fw.stopWatching();

Or if it would use somehting like boost::signal it would be even better. But please, no dependencies other than the Standard Library, boost and raw WinAPI. Thanks!

Answer 1

Does this link help?

Answer 2

There is some public-domain code here. My current project uses this (inherited from previous developers). It works pretty well but we do miss notifications for reasons that are unclear (and possibly not caused by this code).

Note that the Win32 API here has some limitations which make it difficult/impossible to avoid missing notifications. Background and alleged work-round for the API are here

Answer 3

What about the ReadDirectoryChangesW function?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365465(VS.85).aspx

It stores notifications in a buffer so you don't miss any changes (unless the buffer overflows)