You can subscribe to Win32 ChangeNotify messages, which would let you know when a file changed for whatever reason. I'm not sure if this helps in your situation, but it is kinda cool. If you don't have Win32::ChangeNotify installed, you can get it via PPM if you run ActiveState ala "ppm install Win32-ChangeNotify" or from CPAN using "perl -MCPAN -e 'install Win32::ChangeNotify'". Here's some sample code:
use strict;
my $logfile = "D:\\ChangeNotify.txt";
my $path = "D:\\";
use Win32::ChangeNotify;
ChangeWatch();
sub ChangeWatch {
#$filter can contain any of the below seperated by a |
#
#ATTRIBUTES Any attribute change
#DIR_NAME Any directory name change
#FILE_NAME Any file name change
#LAST_WRITE Any change to a file's last write time
#SECURITY Any security descriptor change
#SIZE Any change in a file's size
my $filter = LAST_WRITE;
my ($path,$subtree);
my $notify = Win32::ChangeNotify->new($path,$subtree,$filter);
$notify->wait or warn "Something failed: $!\n";
Notify($path,$subtree);
$notify->reset;
ChangeWatch();
}
sub Notify {
my ($path,$subtree)=@_;
open(FILE,">>$logfile) or die "could not optn $logfile: $!";
print FILE scalar localtime . "Change Detected at $path $subtree\n";
close FILE;
}
-Vlad