Here is an easy way to trigger a command inside a docker container. One use case of this is to trigger a compiler, which is running inside a container, to recompile sources.
Make sure inotify-tools is installed on the container, apt install inotify-tools (Debian/Ubuntu), pacman -S inotify-tools (Arch). It’s also
assumed some directory is mounted on the container which the host can write to
and container can read.
The trick here is a .watchfile file which we can touch which will be picked
up by watchdo (a script wrapping inotify written by Denilson Sá)
which will trigger some commands.
build.sh,
while ./watchdo .watchfile; do
gcc -o main main.c
done
Run build.sh inside the container and to trigger it just touch the
.watchfile. If your IDE or editor lets you map a shortcut to trigger a
command, you can easily trigger a recompilation without having to leave your
editor.
In Vim, you can map <leader>s to save and trigger recompilation,
:nmap <leader>s :wall <BAR> silent !touch .watchfile<CR>
Alternatively if you’re working with a single file, you can just point watchdo
to the file and just saving normally after making changes it will be enough to
trigger the actions.
It’s also possible to use inotify to watch a whole directory and trigger
whenever any file changes. watchdo currently doesn’t support it, but it should
be a simple to add with some help from man pages or online references.