FileSystemWatcher: Ignore temporary and ghost files created

Question

I have implemented a watcher service in java which monitors folders for changes. Whenever a word file gets created,modified or deleted, it creates a lot of temporary files and ghost files. My question is how to ignore these files? I tried to see if they are hidden files, but they are not. I want a solution which works with all kind of applications not just microsoft word.

Thanks

Answer 1

My quick test shows the opposite: both the DOS shell and the Java IO API says that Word tmp files are hidden, ie.:

DIR /A:H 

lists Word tmp files.

The following simple test program reports Word tmp files as hidden ones:

import java.io.File;

public class Hidden{
   public static void main(String[] args){
      File dir = new File(args[0]);
      for (File file : dir.listFiles()){
         System.out.println(file + " is hidden? " + file.isHidden());
      }     
   }
}

Test env: WinXP Professional + JDK 1.6