Triggering a command when a file tree is changed using inotify

inotify-trigger.sh

#!/bin/bash
# Watch a directory and run a script every time inotify reports that something
# changed, followed by 10 seconds of no changes. Handy for responding to incoming
# rsync jobs or the like.
# 
# Requires that inotify-tools is installed.

WATCHDIR=${1:./}
TRIGGERCOMMAND=${2:-echo fired}

# Wait for something to happen...
while inotifywait -qq -r -e modify,close_write,create,delete,move,delete_self $WATCHDIR ; do
    # something happened, waiting for nothing to happen for 10 seconds
    while inotifywait -t 10 -qq -r -e modify,close_write,create,delete,move,delete_self $WATCHDIR ; do
        # more stuff happened, hold off a while longer
        sleep 1
    done
    WAITSTATUS=$?
    #echo waitstatus: $WAITSTATUS
    if [[ "$WAITSTATUS" == "1" ]] ; then
        echo inotifywait returned an error. Aborting.
        exit 1
    fi
    $TRIGGERCOMMAND
done