get the size of a dynamically changing file fast ?

[Mike Driscoll]

On Jan 17, 3:56 pm, Stef Mientki <stef.mien... at gmail.com> wrote:
> hello,
>
> I've a program (not written in Python) that generates a few thousands
> bytes per second,
> these files are dumped in 2 buffers (files), at in interval time of 50 msec,
> the files can be read by another program, to do further processing.
>
> A program written in VB or delphi can handle the data in the 2 buffers
> perfectly.
> Sometimes Python is also able to process the data correctly,
> but often it can't :-(
>
> I keep one of the files open en test the size of the open datafile each
> 50 msec.
> I have tried
>     os.stat ( ....) [ ST_SIZE]
>     os.path.getsize ( ... )
> but they both have the same behaviour, sometimes it works, and the data
> is collected each 50 .. 100 msec,
> sometimes 1 .. 1.5 seconds is needed to detect a change in filesize.
>
> I'm using python 2.4 on winXP.
>
> Is there a solution for this problem ?
>
> thanks,
> Stef Mientki

Tim Golden has a method to watch for changes in a directory on his
website:

http://tgolden.sc.sabren.com/python/win32_how_do_i/watch_directory_for_changes.html

This old post also mentions something similar:

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2007-October/463065.html

And here's a cookbook recipe that claims to do it as well using
decorators:

http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/426620

Hopefully that will get you going.

Mike