How to do it...

Let's start by loading the dependencies we'll be needing:

const fs = require('fs') 
const human = require('human-time') 

Next we'll set up some references:

const interval = 5007 
const file = process.argv[2] 
var exists = false 

Do a quick check to make sure we've been supplied a file:

if (!file) { 
  console.error('supply a file') 
  process.exit(1) 
} 

Now we'll set up some utility functions, which will help us interpret the file change event:

const created = ({birthtime})  => {
  return !exists && (Date.now() - birthtime) < interval
}
 
const missing = ({birthtime, mtime, atime, ctime}) =>  {
  return !(birthtime|mtime|atime|ctime)
}
 
const updated = (cur, prv) => cur.mtime !== prv.mtime 

Finally, we use fs.watchFile to poll the specified file and then log out the activity from the listener function supplied to fs.watchFile like so:

fs.watchFile(file, {interval}, (cur, prv) => { 
  if (missing(cur)) { 
    const msg = exists ? 'removed' : 'doesn\'t exist' 
    exists = false 
    return console.log(`${file} ${msg}`) 
  } 
 
  if (created(cur)) { 
    exists = true 
    return console.log(`${file} created ${human((cur.birthtime))}`) 
  } 
 
  exists = true 
 
  if (updated(cur, prv)) { 
    return console.log(`${file} updated ${human((cur.mtime))}`) 
  } 
 
  console.log(`${file} modified ${human((cur.mtime))}`) 
}) 

We should now be able to test our watcher.

In one terminal, we can run the following:

$ node watcher my-file.txt 

And in another terminal, we can make a change:

$ echo "more content" >> my-file.txt 

Alternatively, we can remove the file:

$ rm my-file.txt 

And we can also recreate the file:

$ echo "back again" > my-file.txt 

We should be seeing results similar to this: