Can the gruntjs watch be restarted on grunt.js file change

Question

Can the grunt watch be restarted when ever there is a change in grunt.js file

use case: I am right now in the process of building my grunt process and keep changing the grunt.js file and I have to restart the grunt.js to see if it works.

score 13 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 04 '14 at 13:00

13

It looks like this was implemented in version 0.4.0. You can see the issue here which explains that by simply watching the Gruntfile (even without any tasks) the entire contents of the Grunt setup will be reloaded:

watch: {
    grunt: { files: ['grunt.js'] }
}

edited Jan 04 '14 at 13:00

Pavlo

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answered Jan 03 '14 at 14:43

Jordan Kasper

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Great! I left this as `grunt.js` because your original question states it uses that name (versus `Gruntfile.js`), but so long as the name is correct it should work. – Jordan Kasper Jan 04 '14 at 14:03
this does nothing for me – valerio0999 Jul 29 '15 at 12:50
i mean.. it does watch it, but the new configurations are not applied to the currently open session. so it's useless. – valerio0999 Jul 29 '15 at 12:52
@vlrprbttst Hmm, I think you have something else going on then. This does work for me (and reloads config for tasks). Can you put your example in a gist? Might be easier to see what's going on that way. – Jordan Kasper Jul 29 '15 at 13:22
it actually works. it doesn't on some tasks (like browsersync for example) but in fact it does work on other tasks. sorry for that – valerio0999 Jul 29 '15 at 13:33
No worries! Glad you figured that part out. – Jordan Kasper Jul 29 '15 at 13:46

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 03 '14 at 12:50

1

Yes you can achieve it. For example add Gruntfile.js to your files array.

 watch: {
     js:{
        files:['src/js/**/*.js','Gruntfile.js'],
        tasks: ['jshint','requirejs'],
      }
 }

answered Jan 03 '14 at 12:50

msapkal

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 12 '15 at 14:26

0

This default behaviour is to reload only when the Gruntfile changes.

If you want to reload when an other files change you can use the option reload :

watch: {

        "grunt" : {
            files: ['Gruntfile.js','someotherfiles.json'],
            options: { reload: true }
        }

    },

Source : https://github.com/gruntjs/grunt-contrib-watch/pull/285

answered Jan 12 '15 at 14:26

gsouf

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This is specially useful when you split the grunt configuration (usually inside Gruntfile.js) into separate files. – Meetai.com Jul 17 '16 at 20:15

Can the gruntjs watch be restarted on grunt.js file change

3 Answers3

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