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idea-fsnotifier-wsl

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IntelliJ IDEA fsnotifier for WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)

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# IntelliJ IDEA fsnotifier for WSL [![CircleCI](https://circleci.com/gh/int128/idea-fsnotifier-wsl.svg?style=shield)](https://circleci.com/gh/int128/idea-fsnotifier-wsl)

[IntelliJ IDEA for Linux](https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/download/#section=linux) works on WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux; Bash for Windows) as well, but the file watching feature is not available for now. It shows the following warning on startup:

> ⚠️ External file changes sync may be slow.
> File watcher gave up to operate.
>
> ![screenshot](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/int128/idea-fsnotifier-wsl/master/idea-wsl-warning.png)

This project provides `fsnotifier` module that allows the file watching feature works on WSL.
External file changes will immediately appear.

## How to use

Download [the latest release](https://github.com/int128/idea-fsnotifier-wsl/releases) and install it into `$IDEA/bin`.

```sh
ls -la fsnotifier64
cp -av fsnotifier64 ~/bin/idea-IC-*/bin/
```

Run IDEA and check if the warning does not appear.

### Build from source

Make sure you have a C compiler.

```sh
sudo apt install build-essential
cc -v
```

Make and install it into `$IDEA/bin`.

```sh
./make.sh
ls -la fsnotifier64
cp -av fsnotifier64 ~/bin/idea-IC-*/bin/
```

## How it works

Currently `fsnotifier64` fails on WSL, because WSL does not provide `/proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches` and `/etc/mtab`.

This skips checking `/proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches`.
Also it reads from `/proc/mounts` instead of `/etc/mtab`.
See commits for more.

## Contribution

This is based on [JetBrains/intellij-community/native/fsNotifier/linux](https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community/tree/master/native/fsNotifier/linux).

Feel free to open an issue or pull request.
Original and this are public under Apache License 2.0.

idea-fsnotifier-wsl

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