«watch» configuration variable doesn't work

support
1

Hi.
I has this in my config.yaml:

# watch filesystem for changes and recreate as needed
watch: true

according to the Configuring Hugo documentation.
I believed that, with this option to true, it should be enough to run hugo server (or even only hugo, I don’t know) for get hugo to watch filesystem for changes and recreate as needed, but it doesn’t seems to work for me.
I still need to do hugo server --watch, like usual.
I’m doing something wrong? There’s still need to configure anything else?
And yes: I can simply create an alias in .bashrc, but if this option is already built-in in hugo, it would be nice to take advantage of it :).
I’m using archlinux and hugo version:

Hugo Static Site Generator v0.13 BuildDate: 2015-04-20T21:17:06+02:00

(installed from AUR package, hugo).

I used the search function and didn’t found anything about this.

Thanks for your time :).

2

The configuration flags -w or --watch work just fine.

Not sure if it was ever meant to be set in the site config, but in my head these belong on the command line as server options. -w is two bytes extra typing …

3

I already know that -w and -watch cmd options work just fine, because I’m already using them, @bjornerik. I mentioned -watch in my question. I’m not complaining because is so hard to me to type two extra characters, nor because it’s vital for me or because I hate the shell (I love it).
I explicitly said this:

And yes: I can simply create an alias in .bashrc, but if this option is already built-in in hugo, it would be nice to take advantage of it :).

Just for don’t get this kind of answer. I thank you for taking your time answering me ^^… but you didn’t answered my question ^_^U. I don’t know if you missunderstand me or what.

So, my question is still on (now, rewritten):

The configuration variable watch: true in config.yaml works?
If the variable doesn’t work: why is it there/in documentation?
I already know that -w and -watch options works. Please, don’t answer me that.

That’s what I want to know ^_^.

4

If it says in the documentation that watch is a valid configuration property in config.yaml and it doesn’t work – then it is a bug and a GitHub issue should be created.

I would say it is a bug in the documentation.

In the mean time, the workaround is known and easy.

1 Like
5

Yes, that’s precissely the answer I was finding :D.
I only wanted to know if it doesn’t work because I was doing something bad or because, well, It doesn’t work to anyone :p.
Then, I will create a GitHub issue, I guess. Thanks.

6

Wait a second…
Just thinking about it… I guess I realized just know what (if isn’t a bug) this means.
In the documentation it says, like I quoted previously:

# watch filesystem for changes and recreate as needed
watch:                      false

Maybe (and only maybe) it purpose is only being set to false to disable the watch when you use hugo for serve your site (instead of a full fledge server, like nginx, apache…).
If that’s the case, this sure makes sense. But how it doesn’t clarify that in that comment, is misleading. Because you can guess that, if you turn it true, it will watch for changes without pass the option in command line (like other options do).

Well. I will still place the issue, whit this comment also. Thanks again.