Running a python program during idle time only

[Shane Hathaway]

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