Running a python program during idle time only

[John Abel]

Shane Hathaway wrote:

>Mike Meyer wrote:
>  
>
>>On a completely different topic, this looks like the wrong way to solve
>>the problem. You want to update a search engine based on changes to the
>>underlying file system. The right way to do this isn't to just keep
>>rescanning the file system, it's to arrange things so that your scanner
>>gets notified of any changes made to the file system. I did something like 
>>this for my web site search engine, but that's hooked into the SCM that's
>>used for propogating changes to the web site. I know someone is working
>>on patches to the FreeBSD kernel to make this kind of thing work. It would
>>seem that some of the "backup" facilities that worked by keeping a mirror
>>of the disk on separate media would have to have used such hooks, but maybe
>>not.
>>    
>>
>
>I think you're right that filesystem change notification is what Carlos
>needs.
>
>If you're interested in using Linux, Carlos, "inotify" is a new kernel
>module that can notify your program of filesystem changes.  It's not
>folded into the mainline kernel yet, but it's a clean patch.
>
>http://www.edoceo.com/creo/inotify/
>
>I don't know if Windows has anything like it.  I'd be interested to hear
>if it does.
>
>Shane
>  
>
Using the PyWin32 extensions, you can register an event with the kernel, 
and then have the script sleep.  If I can remember how, I'll post some 
code.  It's been a while since I coded specific Win32 stuff.

J