master/README.rdoc

= Guard

Guard is a command line tool to easly handle events on files modifications.

== Features

- FSEvent support on Mac OS X (without RubyCocoa!)
- Inotify support on Linux (beta)
- Super fast change detection
- Automatic files modifications detection (even new files are detected)
- Growl notification (please install {growlnotify}[http://growl.info/documentation/growlnotify.php])
- Libnotify notification

== Install

Only Mac OS X (10.5+) & Linux are supported. Tested on Ruby 1.8.7 & 1.9.2dev.

Install the gem:

    gem install guard

Add it to your Gemfile (inside test group):

    gem 'guard'

Generate an empty Guardfile with:

    guard init

Add guard(s) you need (see available guards below)

== Usage

Just launch Guard inside your ruby/rails project with:

    guard

Options list is available with:

    guard help

Signal handlers are used to interact with Guard:

- Ctrl-C - Quit Guard (call stop guard(s) method before)
- Ctrl-\ - Call run_all guard(s) method
- Ctrl-Z - Call reload guard(s) method

== Available Guards

- {guard-rspec}[http://github.com/guard/guard-rspec]

guard ideas:

- guard-spork
- guard-livereload
- guard-cucumber
- guard-test
- guard-sass
- guard-bundler
- others ideas?

=== Add a guard to your Guardfile

Add it to your Gemfile (inside test group):

    gem '<guard-name>'

Add guard definition to your Guardfile with:

    guard init <guard-name>

You are good to go!

== Create a guard

Create a new guard is very easy, just create a new gem with this basic structure:

    - lib/
      - guard/
        - guard-name/
          - templates/
            - Guardfile (needed for guard init <guard-name>)
        - guard-name.rb

lib/guard/guard-name.rb inherit from guard/guard and should overwrite at least one of the five guard methods. Example:

    require 'guard'
    require 'guard/guard'
    
    module Guard
      class GuardName < Guard
        
        # ================
        # = Guard method =
        # ================
        
        # Call once when guard starts
        def start
          true
        end
        
        # Call with Ctrl-C signal (when Guard quit)
        def stop
          true
        end
        
        # Call with Ctrl-Z signal
        def reload
          true
        end
        
        # Call with Ctrl-/ signal
        def run_all
          true
        end
        
        # Call on file(s) modifications
        def run_on_change(paths)
          true
        end
        
      end
    end

Looks at available guards code for more concrete example.

== Guardfile DSL

Guardfile DSL consists of just 2 simple methods: guard & watch. Example:

    guard 'rspec', :version => 2 do
      watch('^spec/(.*)_spec.rb')
      watch('^lib/(.*)\.rb')        { |m| "spec/lib/#{m[1]}_spec.rb" }
      watch('^spec/spec_helper.rb') { "spec" }
      watch('^spec/spec_helper.rb') { `say hello` }
    end
    
- "guard" method allow to add a guard with an optional options hash
- "watch" method allow to define which files are supervised per this guard. A optional block can be added to overwrite path sending to run_on_change guard method or launch simple command.

== TODO

- Add more specs, help are welcome because I'm not sure about how to test stuff like this :-)

== Development

- Source hosted at {GitHub}[http://github.com/guard/guard]
- Report issues/Questions/Feature requests on {GitHub Issues}[http://github.com/guard/guard/issues]

Pull requests are very welcome! Make sure your patches are well tested. Please create a topic branch for every separate change
you make.

== Authors

{Thibaud Guillaume-Gentil}[http://github.com/thibaudgg].