Make the sails.js server monitor file change using chokidar and then emit socket message - sockets

Question

I use chokidar to monitor if files have been changed in a folder. At the moment it is triggered when a user updates an Experiment Model in my ExperimentController.
var chokidar = require('chokidar');
...
var watcher = chokidar.watch('assets/output-model-files', {ignored: /[\/\\]\./, persistent: true});
watcher.on('change', function(path) {
...read my changed file and update the content of my database, and send a socket publishUpdate message...
... read file content in an asynchronous way
fs.readFile(path,"utf-8", function (err, data) {
... update the experiment object with the content of the changed file
Experiment.update(req.param('id'), ExpObj, function expUpdated(err) {});
... send a message via socket saying that the exeriment object has been updated
Experiment.publishUpdate(req.param('id'), {name: exp.name,
results: JSON.stringify(myres),
action: ('file has just been updated. nb of trajectories: '+totalNbTrajectories)
});
But I would like to constantly monitor any change in the target folder and send Experiment.publishUpdate messages when it happens from the moment when the sails.js server starts, and not when a user update an experiment object.
Where could I place that chokidar.watch(...) code on the server side so as to update an experiment object from a file change? socket.js?

Answer 1

Ok. I found that locating the code in bootstrap.js seems to do the job perfectly reagrding the even triggering...
My bootstrap.js now looks like:
var chokidar = require('chokidar');
var fs = require('fs');
var os = require('os');
var sys = require('sys');
module.exports.bootstrap = function(cb) {
// It's very important to trigger this callack method when you are finished
// with the bootstrap! (otherwise your server will never lift, since it's waiting on the bootstrap)
User.update({}, {online: false},
function userUpdated(err, users) {
if (err) {
console.log(err);
} else {
var watcher = chokidar.watch('assets/output-model-files', {ignored: /[\/\\]\./, persistent: true});
watcher.on('change', function(path) {
console.log('File', path, 'has been changed');
// do file reading and presumably Experiment publish update here
});
}
cb();
}
)
};