How to automatically run code / commands after files are saved in visual studio 2017

Question

I have the following scenario: My solution in VS 2017 includes some python files which other and I often edit. How can I achieve that every time I save one of these open .py files, some code or .bat file (or whatever is most convenient in your opinion) that should copy them from X to Y gets executed? For example, files a.py and b.py are open in my solution among others, and I just edited some of them and clicked "Save" or "Save all", so if I clicked "Save" I want only the current document to be copied - if it's a .py - from path X to path Y, and if I clicked "Save all" I want all the .py documents to be copied.

I came across this question: Run script when finished saving file - Visual Studio Extensibility

that introduced me to DTE which allows me to subscribe to file-save-events, so I suppose I could right some code that uses it, but I am unclear as to how this code would run automatically upon the file saves.

Answer 1

You create a windows service and make use of the FileSystemWatcher class but i will rather give u a simpler solution because i cannot really write how to make a windows service as it may be huge :(

Anyways, here's an ugly solution ;)

1 . Create a WinForm's app

2 . Create a timer in it

3 . Use FileSystemWatcher in the timer's tick event

4 . Fire the timer on Form_Load and hide the form :)

5 . Add your app to the startup

Example :

 public class form1
 {
   Forms.Timer tmr = new Forms.Timer

   private void form_Load()

    {
      tmr.Tick += tmr_Tick();
      tmr.Start
      me.Hide();
    }

  private void tmr_Tick()

  {

   FileSystemWatcher watcher = new FileSystemWatcher();
   watcher.Path = path;
   watcher.NotifyFilter = NotifyFilters.LastWrite;
   watcher.Filter = "*.*";
   watcher.Changed += new FileSystemEventHandler(OnChanged);
   watcher.EnableRaisingEvents = true;

  }

   private void OnChanged(object source, FileSystemEventArgs e)
  {
  //Copies file to another directory.
  }