How to keep ReadDirectoryChangesW from missing file changes

Question

There are many posts on the internet about the ReadDirectoryChangesW API function missing files when there is a lot of file activity. Most blame the speed at which the ReadDirectoryChangesW function loop is called. This is an incorrect assumption. The best explanation I have seen is in the following post, the comment on Monday, April 14, 2008 2:15:27 PM

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/netfxbcl/thread/4465cafb-f4ed-434f-89d8-c85ced6ffaa8/

The summary is that the ReadDirectoryChangesW function reports file changes as they leave the file-write-behind queue, not as they are added. And if too many are added before being committed, you lose notice on some of them. You can see this with your implementation, if you just write a program to generate a 1000+ files in a directory real quick. Just count how many file event notices you get and you will see there are times when you will not receive all of them.

The question is, has anyone found a reliable method to use the ReadDirectoryChangesW function without having to flush the volume each time? This is not allowed if the user is not an Administrator and can also take some time to complete.

Answer 1

If the API is unreliable, then a workaround may be your only option. That of course likely involves keeping track of lastmodified and filenames. What this doesn't mean is that you need to poll when looking for changes, rather, you can use the FileSystemWatcher as a means to trigger checking.

So if you keep track of the last 50-100 times the FSW event happened, and you see that it is being called rapidly, you can detect this and trigger the special condition to get all the files that have been changed (and set a flag to prevent future bogus FSW events temporarily) in a few seconds.