Monitoring non-directory files

[kreichgauer]

It took me some time to figure out that Observer.schedule only accepts path names pointing to a directory. The API Reference clearly states that it has to be a directory path, but the Quick Start guide could be more clear about it, and the Observer classes should probably raise an exception if you pass a non-directory file path.

[hbmartin]

Is there any way at all to monitor non-directory files?

[brutus]

Took me quiet some time to figure out that monitoring non-directory files don't work o.O Is there any way to do this (despite watching the containing directory and filtering the wanted file, or polling manually for file changes)?

[oprypin]

As far as I can tell, watchdog does not support passing a file's path to watch.
But actually with Linux, Mac and Polling emitters this seems to work by accident, but with Windows emitter it doesn't work (see also #769).

@BoboTiG could you make a statement whether Watchdog wants to support this use case?

Having that confirmation, maybe someone can solidify what already works by adding tests, and for the Windows emitter add some extra code to support this.

Alternatively, support for this can also be done generically, indeed by watching the parent directory like so:
08978b2 (mkdocs/mkdocs#2427)
Which is also perhaps code that could be integrated into Watchdog.