How to notify for write operations only? (using -m inotify_monitor on linux)

[pmorch]

I was expecting only to see notifications for "write" operations that modify the file system. Is that a valid assumption?

I get 6 notifications from /bin/ls emptyDir. Am I misunderstanding something fundamental here?

Details

Terminal one:

$ mkdir emptyDir

# This uses -m inotify_monitor
$ fswatch -xr emptyDir
/home/pmorch/emptyDir IsDir
/home/pmorch/emptyDir PlatformSpecific
/home/pmorch/emptyDir IsDir
/home/pmorch/emptyDir PlatformSpecific
/home/pmorch/emptyDir IsDir
/home/pmorch/emptyDir PlatformSpecific

Why am I notified when starting up fswatch? Clearly nobody is writing to emptyDir yet.

Terminal two:

$ /bin/ls emptyDir
(no output from empty emptyDir)

But then in terminal one I see:

/home/pmorch/emptyDir IsDir
/home/pmorch/emptyDir PlatformSpecific
/home/pmorch/emptyDir IsDir
/home/pmorch/emptyDir PlatformSpecific
/home/pmorch/emptyDir IsDir
/home/pmorch/emptyDir PlatformSpecific

Why does /bin/ls emptyDir create 6 events?

If I use the non-standard -m poll_monitor I get events only for modifications.

How do I use the default inotify_monitor and only get notified for modifications? And if that is possible, why isn't it the default like it apparently is for -m poll_monitor?

Versions and environment

I've tried on machine1:

• fswatch 1.14.0 installed with apt-get on a custom Debian-based distro
• fswatch 1.17.1 installed from nix
• on an ext4 file system

on machine2:

• NixOS 23.11
• fswatch 1.17.1
• btrfs file system