Waiting while FileSystemWatcher is monitoring directory

Question

I am trying to monitor a log file for changes. My code is working, and does everything it should. However, as I want this to run as a windows service and be constantly monitoring I'm not sure of the proper way to set it into a waiting state. Here is what it's doing at the moment.

    public static void Main()
    {
            log_watcher = new FileSystemWatcher();
            log_watcher.Path = Path.GetDirectoryName(pathToFile);
            log_watcher.Filter = recent_file.Name;
            log_watcher.NotifyFilter = NotifyFilters.LastWrite;
            log_watcher.Changed += new FileSystemEventHandler(OnChanged);

            log_watcher.EnableRaisingEvents = true;
            //do rest of stuff OnChanged
            while (true)
            {

            }
    }

And then just a simple:

    public static void OnChanged(object sender, FileSystemEventArgs e)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("File has changed");
    }

What would be a better way in a windows service to do this?

Answer 1

You can start a message pump using Application.Run() from WinForms.

using System.Windows.Forms;
// The class that handles the creation of the application windows
class MyApplicationContext : ApplicationContext {

    private MyApplicationContext() {
        // Handle the ApplicationExit event to know when the application is exiting.
        Application.ApplicationExit += new EventHandler(this.OnApplicationExit);

        log_watcher = new FileSystemWatcher();
        log_watcher.Path = Path.GetDirectoryName(pathToFile);
        log_watcher.Filter = recent_file.Name;
        log_watcher.NotifyFilter = NotifyFilters.LastWrite;
        log_watcher.Changed += new FileSystemEventHandler(OnChanged);

        log_watcher.EnableRaisingEvents = true;
    }

    public static void OnChanged(object sender, FileSystemEventArgs e) {
        Console.WriteLine("File has changed");
    }

    private void OnApplicationExit(object sender, EventArgs e) {
        Console.WriteLine("File monitor exited.");
    }

    [STAThread]
    static void Main(string[] args) {

        // Create the MyApplicationContext, that derives from     ApplicationContext,
        // that manages when the application should exit.

        MyApplicationContext context = new MyApplicationContext();

        // Run the application with the specific context. It will exit when
        // all forms are closed.
        Application.Run(context);

    }
}

See Run(ApplicationContext) on learn.microsoft.com.