Using the watcher library from C

The watcher can also be used from C by including the watcher-c.h file on compilation and in your project.

You can cross compile the library via the watcher-c/cross-compile.sh script or download the precompiled library from the releases.

Compiling the library from source

If you want to compile the library yourself you can follow the following example:

First check out a branch or release, here we'll use the 'next' branch. You can then compile the library with meson or a tool of your choice, we will use c++.

curl -L https://github.com/e-dant/watcher/archive/refs/heads/next.tar.gz | tar xz
cd watcher-next/watcher-c
c++ -o libwatcher-c.so ./src/watcher-c.cpp -I ./include -I ../include -std=c++17 -fPIC -shared

This gives us a libwatcher-c.so library that you can now install on your system. In most container based environments you can just copy the library like this:

cp libwatcher-c.so /usr/local/lib/libwatcher-c.so
ldconfig

Using the library in your C code

After installing the library, copy the watcher-c.h file to your project and include it in your C code:

#include "watcher-c.h"

You will then be able to use the functions provided by the library.