Prevent EMFILE

[pravdomil]

Try to run (with empty file.txt in working dir):

for(let i = 0; i < 10e3; i++) { require('fs').watch('file.txt') }

Produces instantly: Uncaught Error: watch file.txt EMFILE

It make sense to dedupe multiple watchers on same file to prevent 'too many files open'?

• Version: v7.2.1
• Platform: macOS

[fhalde]

I feel one can always make a wrapper over the fs.watch to do the deduplication. node doing that will restrict/hinder the API users from having multiple watchers for different purposes.

One way to say node to do deduplication yet keeping the API flexible is by adding some new option

[sam-github]

This is not so different from a file open, it uses a fd, and I can't see why you would want to open 1000 watches on the same file.

[bnoordhuis]

Seems the consensus is that node core isn't the place to fix this. I'll go ahead and close the issue.