>Hello all,
>
>I wasn't sure how to classify this question, but I have a situation where I want to have a process (already written) run when a file is populated into a directory on my server. Basically, it is an import process that takes a file and loads it into the database. The file will be sent to the directory by partners via FTP.
>
>How should I create this? Should I create some kind of 'listener' process (if so, how is this accomplished?) that kicks off the import process when a file exists or create a console app that runs every minute or so and checks for the existence of said file in the directory and then run the import process when the file exists?
>
>If I do the latter, then this job will run over and over again to load a file that I get once a week.
>
>All suggestions are appreciated.
>

I have done this using a simple all-VFP solution. The form program includes a timer. Every time the timer fires it checks the target directory for target file(s). The directories and files are in a table, as are the names of the EXEs to run. It was straightforward, probably no more than a morning's work. Every process that was triggered was logged to another table, including start time and end time. After a certain elapsed time processes that had started and not finished were retriggered. The timer interval was 5 minutes or so, which isn't instant like the Windows event approach suggested by Craig and Bruce, but it was more than adequate for our purposes.