Author: csnorwood

Bard fails miserably at recursive programming where ChatGPT gave an almost finished result.

I asked both to write a C++ program given a folder to monitor its contents and recurs down through all sub folders and monitor those files too.

At the moment, Bard hasn’t got a grip on recursive programming. ChatGPT came out the clear winner. Although I did have to coax it to get it to include the right header files.

The final result definitely wouldn’t be production worthy but a good start to show how to work on this particular task type.

#include <iostream>
#include <sys/inotify.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <cstring>
#include <vector>
#include <dirent.h>

#define EVENT_SIZE (sizeof(struct inotify_event))
#define EVENT_BUF_LEN (1024 * (EVENT_SIZE + 16))

void monitorDirectory(const char* directory, int fd, std::vector<int>& watchDescriptors) {
    // Add a watch for the specified directory
    int wd = inotify_add_watch(fd, directory, IN_MODIFY | IN_CREATE | IN_DELETE | IN_MOVED_FROM | IN_MOVED_TO);
    if (wd < 0) {
        std::cerr << "Failed to add watch for directory: " << directory << std::endl;
        return;
    }

    watchDescriptors.push_back(wd);

    // Scan subdirectories
    DIR* dir = opendir(directory);
    if (!dir) {
        std::cerr << "Failed to open directory: " << directory << std::endl;
        return;
    }

    struct dirent* entry;
    while ((entry = readdir(dir)) != nullptr) {
        if (entry->d_type == DT_DIR) {
            if (std::strcmp(entry->d_name, ".") != 0 && std::strcmp(entry->d_name, "..") != 0) {
                std::string subdirectory = std::string(directory) + "/" + entry->d_name;
                monitorDirectory(subdirectory.c_str(), fd, watchDescriptors);
            }
        }
    }

    closedir(dir);
}

int main() {
    int fd = inotify_init();
    if (fd < 0) {
        std::cerr << "Failed to initialize inotify" << std::endl;
        return 1;
    }

    const char* directory = "/home/wlgfx/Downloads";
    std::vector<int> watchDescriptors;
    monitorDirectory(directory, fd, watchDescriptors);

    std::cout << "Monitoring changes in directory: " << directory << std::endl;

    char buffer[EVENT_BUF_LEN];
    while (true) {
        int length = read(fd, buffer, EVENT_BUF_LEN);
        if (length < 0) {
            std::cerr << "Failed to read events" << std::endl;
            break;
        }

        int i = 0;
        while (i < length) {
            struct inotify_event* event = (struct inotify_event*)&buffer[i];
            if (event->len) {
                if (event->mask & IN_CREATE)
                    std::cout << "File created: " << event->name << std::endl;
                else if (event->mask & IN_DELETE)
                    std::cout << "File deleted: " << event->name << std::endl;
                else if (event->mask & IN_MODIFY)
                    std::cout << "File modified: " << event->name << std::endl;
                else if (event->mask & IN_MOVED_FROM)
                    std::cout << "File/Folder moved from: " << event->name << std::endl;
                else if (event->mask & IN_MOVED_TO)
                    std::cout << "File/Folder moved to: " << event->name << std::endl;
            }
            i += EVENT_SIZE + event->len;
        }
    }

    // Cleanup
    for (int wd : watchDescriptors)
        inotify_rm_watch(fd, wd);

    close(fd);

    return 0;
}