Difference between npm run watch and npm run watch-poll

Question

What is the difference between npm run watch and npm run watch-poll in Laravel mix?

I cannot see any difference between the output they give.

Future readers should note that this is a question about [Laravel Mix](https://github.com/JeffreyWay/laravel-mix) , which is a wrapper around Webpack that can be used with or without Laravel. — Pida, Jan 24 '19 at 10:29

score 72 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 11 '17 at 15:00

72

watch will listen for file changes, however, on certain systems this won't always work.

watch-poll periodically checks (polls) for changes e.g. every 1000ms it will manually check to see if any files have changed.

edited Oct 11 '17 at 15:00

sepehr

answered May 23 '17 at 07:04

Rwd

at least for me watch-poll also have a weird downside: memory leak of sorts... – Caio Wilson Mar 03 '22 at 18:46

score 17 · Answer 2 · answered May 23 '17 at 07:02

watch-poll is an alternative to watch in certain enviroments watch might not track changes properly, therefore watch-poll was implemented.

Poll will check the files every x seconds rather than automatically picking up on changes through watching.

You can read up on the docs for a more information about mix.

2 Answers2