evdispatch 0.3.1 → 0.4.0

data/ext/revdispatch/libdispatch-0.1/libev-3.31/ev.pod

@@ -1,3268 +0,0 @@
-=head1 NAME
-
-libev - a high performance full-featured event loop written in C
-
-=head1 SYNOPSIS
-
-  #include <ev.h>
-
-=head2 EXAMPLE PROGRAM
-
-  // a single header file is required
-  #include <ev.h>
-
-  // every watcher type has its own typedef'd struct
-  // with the name ev_<type>
-  ev_io stdin_watcher;
-  ev_timer timeout_watcher;
-
-  // all watcher callbacks have a similar signature
-  // this callback is called when data is readable on stdin
-  static void
-  stdin_cb (EV_P_ struct ev_io *w, int revents)
-  {
-    puts ("stdin ready");
-    // for one-shot events, one must manually stop the watcher
-    // with its corresponding stop function.
-    ev_io_stop (EV_A_ w);
-
-    // this causes all nested ev_loop's to stop iterating
-    ev_unloop (EV_A_ EVUNLOOP_ALL);
-  }
-
-  // another callback, this time for a time-out
-  static void
-  timeout_cb (EV_P_ struct ev_timer *w, int revents)
-  {
-    puts ("timeout");
-    // this causes the innermost ev_loop to stop iterating
-    ev_unloop (EV_A_ EVUNLOOP_ONE);
-  }
-
-  int
-  main (void)
-  {
-    // use the default event loop unless you have special needs
-    struct ev_loop *loop = ev_default_loop (0);
-
-    // initialise an io watcher, then start it
-    // this one will watch for stdin to become readable
-    ev_io_init (&stdin_watcher, stdin_cb, /*STDIN_FILENO*/ 0, EV_READ);
-    ev_io_start (loop, &stdin_watcher);
-
-    // initialise a timer watcher, then start it
-    // simple non-repeating 5.5 second timeout
-    ev_timer_init (&timeout_watcher, timeout_cb, 5.5, 0.);
-    ev_timer_start (loop, &timeout_watcher);
-
-    // now wait for events to arrive
-    ev_loop (loop, 0);
-
-    // unloop was called, so exit
-    return 0;
-  }
-
-=head1 DESCRIPTION
-
-The newest version of this document is also available as an html-formatted
-web page you might find easier to navigate when reading it for the first
-time: L<http://cvs.schmorp.de/libev/ev.html>.
-
-Libev is an event loop: you register interest in certain events (such as a
-file descriptor being readable or a timeout occurring), and it will manage
-these event sources and provide your program with events.
-
-To do this, it must take more or less complete control over your process
-(or thread) by executing the I<event loop> handler, and will then
-communicate events via a callback mechanism.
-
-You register interest in certain events by registering so-called I<event
-watchers>, which are relatively small C structures you initialise with the
-details of the event, and then hand it over to libev by I<starting> the
-watcher.
-
-=head2 FEATURES
-
-Libev supports C<select>, C<poll>, the Linux-specific C<epoll>, the
-BSD-specific C<kqueue> and the Solaris-specific event port mechanisms
-for file descriptor events (C<ev_io>), the Linux C<inotify> interface
-(for C<ev_stat>), relative timers (C<ev_timer>), absolute timers
-with customised rescheduling (C<ev_periodic>), synchronous signals
-(C<ev_signal>), process status change events (C<ev_child>), and event
-watchers dealing with the event loop mechanism itself (C<ev_idle>,
-C<ev_embed>, C<ev_prepare> and C<ev_check> watchers) as well as
-file watchers (C<ev_stat>) and even limited support for fork events
-(C<ev_fork>).
-
-It also is quite fast (see this
-L<benchmark|http://libev.schmorp.de/bench.html> comparing it to libevent
-for example).
-
-=head2 CONVENTIONS
-
-Libev is very configurable. In this manual the default (and most common)
-configuration will be described, which supports multiple event loops. For
-more info about various configuration options please have a look at
-B<EMBED> section in this manual. If libev was configured without support
-for multiple event loops, then all functions taking an initial argument of
-name C<loop> (which is always of type C<struct ev_loop *>) will not have
-this argument.
-
-=head2 TIME REPRESENTATION
-
-Libev represents time as a single floating point number, representing the
-(fractional) number of seconds since the (POSIX) epoch (somewhere near
-the beginning of 1970, details are complicated, don't ask). This type is
-called C<ev_tstamp>, which is what you should use too. It usually aliases
-to the C<double> type in C, and when you need to do any calculations on
-it, you should treat it as some floatingpoint value. Unlike the name
-component C<stamp> might indicate, it is also used for time differences
-throughout libev.
-
-=head1 GLOBAL FUNCTIONS
-
-These functions can be called anytime, even before initialising the
-library in any way.
-
-=over 4
-
-=item ev_tstamp ev_time ()
-
-Returns the current time as libev would use it. Please note that the
-C<ev_now> function is usually faster and also often returns the timestamp
-you actually want to know.
-
-=item ev_sleep (ev_tstamp interval)
-
-Sleep for the given interval: The current thread will be blocked until
-either it is interrupted or the given time interval has passed. Basically
-this is a subsecond-resolution C<sleep ()>.
-
-=item int ev_version_major ()
-
-=item int ev_version_minor ()
-
-You can find out the major and minor ABI version numbers of the library
-you linked against by calling the functions C<ev_version_major> and
-C<ev_version_minor>. If you want, you can compare against the global
-symbols C<EV_VERSION_MAJOR> and C<EV_VERSION_MINOR>, which specify the
-version of the library your program was compiled against.
-
-These version numbers refer to the ABI version of the library, not the
-release version.
-
-Usually, it's a good idea to terminate if the major versions mismatch,
-as this indicates an incompatible change. Minor versions are usually
-compatible to older versions, so a larger minor version alone is usually
-not a problem.
-
-Example: Make sure we haven't accidentally been linked against the wrong
-version.
-
-  assert (("libev version mismatch",
-           ev_version_major () == EV_VERSION_MAJOR
-           && ev_version_minor () >= EV_VERSION_MINOR));
-
-=item unsigned int ev_supported_backends ()
-
-Return the set of all backends (i.e. their corresponding C<EV_BACKEND_*>
-value) compiled into this binary of libev (independent of their
-availability on the system you are running on). See C<ev_default_loop> for
-a description of the set values.
-
-Example: make sure we have the epoll method, because yeah this is cool and
-a must have and can we have a torrent of it please!!!11
-
-  assert (("sorry, no epoll, no sex",
-           ev_supported_backends () & EVBACKEND_EPOLL));
-
-=item unsigned int ev_recommended_backends ()
-
-Return the set of all backends compiled into this binary of libev and also
-recommended for this platform. This set is often smaller than the one
-returned by C<ev_supported_backends>, as for example kqueue is broken on
-most BSDs and will not be autodetected unless you explicitly request it
-(assuming you know what you are doing). This is the set of backends that
-libev will probe for if you specify no backends explicitly.
-
-=item unsigned int ev_embeddable_backends ()
-
-Returns the set of backends that are embeddable in other event loops. This
-is the theoretical, all-platform, value. To find which backends
-might be supported on the current system, you would need to look at
-C<ev_embeddable_backends () & ev_supported_backends ()>, likewise for
-recommended ones.
-
-See the description of C<ev_embed> watchers for more info.
-
-=item ev_set_allocator (void *(*cb)(void *ptr, long size))
-
-Sets the allocation function to use (the prototype is similar - the
-semantics are identical to the C<realloc> C89/SuS/POSIX function). It is
-used to allocate and free memory (no surprises here). If it returns zero
-when memory needs to be allocated (C<size != 0>), the library might abort
-or take some potentially destructive action.
-
-Since some systems (at least OpenBSD and Darwin) fail to implement
-correct C<realloc> semantics, libev will use a wrapper around the system
-C<realloc> and C<free> functions by default.
-
-You could override this function in high-availability programs to, say,
-free some memory if it cannot allocate memory, to use a special allocator,
-or even to sleep a while and retry until some memory is available.
-
-Example: Replace the libev allocator with one that waits a bit and then
-retries (example requires a standards-compliant C<realloc>).
-
-   static void *
-   persistent_realloc (void *ptr, size_t size)
-   {
-     for (;;)
-       {
-         void *newptr = realloc (ptr, size);
-
-         if (newptr)
-           return newptr;
-
-         sleep (60);
-       }
-   }
-
-   ...
-   ev_set_allocator (persistent_realloc);
-
-=item ev_set_syserr_cb (void (*cb)(const char *msg));
-
-Set the callback function to call on a retryable syscall error (such
-as failed select, poll, epoll_wait). The message is a printable string
-indicating the system call or subsystem causing the problem. If this
-callback is set, then libev will expect it to remedy the sitution, no
-matter what, when it returns. That is, libev will generally retry the
-requested operation, or, if the condition doesn't go away, do bad stuff
-(such as abort).
-
-Example: This is basically the same thing that libev does internally, too.
-
-   static void
-   fatal_error (const char *msg)
-   {
-     perror (msg);
-     abort ();
-   }
-
-   ...
-   ev_set_syserr_cb (fatal_error);
-
-=back
-
-=head1 FUNCTIONS CONTROLLING THE EVENT LOOP
-
-An event loop is described by a C<struct ev_loop *>. The library knows two
-types of such loops, the I<default> loop, which supports signals and child
-events, and dynamically created loops which do not.
-
-=over 4
-
-=item struct ev_loop *ev_default_loop (unsigned int flags)
-
-This will initialise the default event loop if it hasn't been initialised
-yet and return it. If the default loop could not be initialised, returns
-false. If it already was initialised it simply returns it (and ignores the
-flags. If that is troubling you, check C<ev_backend ()> afterwards).
-
-If you don't know what event loop to use, use the one returned from this
-function.
-
-Note that this function is I<not> thread-safe, so if you want to use it
-from multiple threads, you have to lock (note also that this is unlikely,
-as loops cannot bes hared easily between threads anyway).
-
-The default loop is the only loop that can handle C<ev_signal> and
-C<ev_child> watchers, and to do this, it always registers a handler
-for C<SIGCHLD>. If this is a problem for your app you can either
-create a dynamic loop with C<ev_loop_new> that doesn't do that, or you
-can simply overwrite the C<SIGCHLD> signal handler I<after> calling
-C<ev_default_init>.
-
-The flags argument can be used to specify special behaviour or specific
-backends to use, and is usually specified as C<0> (or C<EVFLAG_AUTO>).
-
-The following flags are supported:
-
-=over 4
-
-=item C<EVFLAG_AUTO>
-
-The default flags value. Use this if you have no clue (it's the right
-thing, believe me).
-
-=item C<EVFLAG_NOENV>
-
-If this flag bit is ored into the flag value (or the program runs setuid
-or setgid) then libev will I<not> look at the environment variable
-C<LIBEV_FLAGS>. Otherwise (the default), this environment variable will
-override the flags completely if it is found in the environment. This is
-useful to try out specific backends to test their performance, or to work
-around bugs.
-
-=item C<EVFLAG_FORKCHECK>
-
-Instead of calling C<ev_default_fork> or C<ev_loop_fork> manually after
-a fork, you can also make libev check for a fork in each iteration by
-enabling this flag.
-
-This works by calling C<getpid ()> on every iteration of the loop,
-and thus this might slow down your event loop if you do a lot of loop
-iterations and little real work, but is usually not noticeable (on my
-GNU/Linux system for example, C<getpid> is actually a simple 5-insn sequence
-without a syscall and thus I<very> fast, but my GNU/Linux system also has
-C<pthread_atfork> which is even faster).
-
-The big advantage of this flag is that you can forget about fork (and
-forget about forgetting to tell libev about forking) when you use this
-flag.
-
-This flag setting cannot be overriden or specified in the C<LIBEV_FLAGS>
-environment variable.
-
-=item C<EVBACKEND_SELECT>  (value 1, portable select backend)
-
-This is your standard select(2) backend. Not I<completely> standard, as
-libev tries to roll its own fd_set with no limits on the number of fds,
-but if that fails, expect a fairly low limit on the number of fds when
-using this backend. It doesn't scale too well (O(highest_fd)), but its
-usually the fastest backend for a low number of (low-numbered :) fds.
-
-To get good performance out of this backend you need a high amount of
-parallelity (most of the file descriptors should be busy). If you are
-writing a server, you should C<accept ()> in a loop to accept as many
-connections as possible during one iteration. You might also want to have
-a look at C<ev_set_io_collect_interval ()> to increase the amount of
-readyness notifications you get per iteration.
-
-=item C<EVBACKEND_POLL>    (value 2, poll backend, available everywhere except on windows)
-
-And this is your standard poll(2) backend. It's more complicated
-than select, but handles sparse fds better and has no artificial
-limit on the number of fds you can use (except it will slow down
-considerably with a lot of inactive fds). It scales similarly to select,
-i.e. O(total_fds). See the entry for C<EVBACKEND_SELECT>, above, for
-performance tips.
-
-=item C<EVBACKEND_EPOLL>   (value 4, Linux)
-
-For few fds, this backend is a bit little slower than poll and select,
-but it scales phenomenally better. While poll and select usually scale
-like O(total_fds) where n is the total number of fds (or the highest fd),
-epoll scales either O(1) or O(active_fds). The epoll design has a number
-of shortcomings, such as silently dropping events in some hard-to-detect
-cases and requiring a syscall per fd change, no fork support and bad
-support for dup.
-
-While stopping, setting and starting an I/O watcher in the same iteration
-will result in some caching, there is still a syscall per such incident
-(because the fd could point to a different file description now), so its
-best to avoid that. Also, C<dup ()>'ed file descriptors might not work
-very well if you register events for both fds.
-
-Please note that epoll sometimes generates spurious notifications, so you
-need to use non-blocking I/O or other means to avoid blocking when no data
-(or space) is available.
-
-Best performance from this backend is achieved by not unregistering all
-watchers for a file descriptor until it has been closed, if possible, i.e.
-keep at least one watcher active per fd at all times.
-
-While nominally embeddeble in other event loops, this feature is broken in
-all kernel versions tested so far.
-
-=item C<EVBACKEND_KQUEUE>  (value 8, most BSD clones)
-
-Kqueue deserves special mention, as at the time of this writing, it
-was broken on all BSDs except NetBSD (usually it doesn't work reliably
-with anything but sockets and pipes, except on Darwin, where of course
-it's completely useless). For this reason it's not being "autodetected"
-unless you explicitly specify it explicitly in the flags (i.e. using
-C<EVBACKEND_KQUEUE>) or libev was compiled on a known-to-be-good (-enough)
-system like NetBSD.
-
-You still can embed kqueue into a normal poll or select backend and use it
-only for sockets (after having made sure that sockets work with kqueue on
-the target platform). See C<ev_embed> watchers for more info.
-
-It scales in the same way as the epoll backend, but the interface to the
-kernel is more efficient (which says nothing about its actual speed, of
-course). While stopping, setting and starting an I/O watcher does never
-cause an extra syscall as with C<EVBACKEND_EPOLL>, it still adds up to
-two event changes per incident, support for C<fork ()> is very bad and it
-drops fds silently in similarly hard-to-detect cases.
-
-This backend usually performs well under most conditions.
-
-While nominally embeddable in other event loops, this doesn't work
-everywhere, so you might need to test for this. And since it is broken
-almost everywhere, you should only use it when you have a lot of sockets
-(for which it usually works), by embedding it into another event loop
-(e.g. C<EVBACKEND_SELECT> or C<EVBACKEND_POLL>) and using it only for
-sockets.
-
-=item C<EVBACKEND_DEVPOLL> (value 16, Solaris 8)
-
-This is not implemented yet (and might never be, unless you send me an
-implementation). According to reports, C</dev/poll> only supports sockets
-and is not embeddable, which would limit the usefulness of this backend
-immensely.
-
-=item C<EVBACKEND_PORT>    (value 32, Solaris 10)
-
-This uses the Solaris 10 event port mechanism. As with everything on Solaris,
-it's really slow, but it still scales very well (O(active_fds)).
-
-Please note that solaris event ports can deliver a lot of spurious
-notifications, so you need to use non-blocking I/O or other means to avoid
-blocking when no data (or space) is available.
-
-While this backend scales well, it requires one system call per active
-file descriptor per loop iteration. For small and medium numbers of file
-descriptors a "slow" C<EVBACKEND_SELECT> or C<EVBACKEND_POLL> backend
-might perform better.
-
-On the positive side, ignoring the spurious readyness notifications, this
-backend actually performed to specification in all tests and is fully
-embeddable, which is a rare feat among the OS-specific backends.
-
-=item C<EVBACKEND_ALL>
-
-Try all backends (even potentially broken ones that wouldn't be tried
-with C<EVFLAG_AUTO>). Since this is a mask, you can do stuff such as
-C<EVBACKEND_ALL & ~EVBACKEND_KQUEUE>.
-
-It is definitely not recommended to use this flag.
-
-=back
-
-If one or more of these are ored into the flags value, then only these
-backends will be tried (in the reverse order as listed here). If none are
-specified, all backends in C<ev_recommended_backends ()> will be tried.
-
-The most typical usage is like this:
-
-  if (!ev_default_loop (0))
-    fatal ("could not initialise libev, bad $LIBEV_FLAGS in environment?");
-
-Restrict libev to the select and poll backends, and do not allow
-environment settings to be taken into account:
-
-  ev_default_loop (EVBACKEND_POLL | EVBACKEND_SELECT | EVFLAG_NOENV);
-
-Use whatever libev has to offer, but make sure that kqueue is used if
-available (warning, breaks stuff, best use only with your own private
-event loop and only if you know the OS supports your types of fds):
-
-  ev_default_loop (ev_recommended_backends () | EVBACKEND_KQUEUE);
-
-=item struct ev_loop *ev_loop_new (unsigned int flags)
-
-Similar to C<ev_default_loop>, but always creates a new event loop that is
-always distinct from the default loop. Unlike the default loop, it cannot
-handle signal and child watchers, and attempts to do so will be greeted by
-undefined behaviour (or a failed assertion if assertions are enabled).
-
-Note that this function I<is> thread-safe, and the recommended way to use
-libev with threads is indeed to create one loop per thread, and using the
-default loop in the "main" or "initial" thread.
-
-Example: Try to create a event loop that uses epoll and nothing else.
-
-  struct ev_loop *epoller = ev_loop_new (EVBACKEND_EPOLL | EVFLAG_NOENV);
-  if (!epoller)
-    fatal ("no epoll found here, maybe it hides under your chair");
-
-=item ev_default_destroy ()
-
-Destroys the default loop again (frees all memory and kernel state
-etc.). None of the active event watchers will be stopped in the normal
-sense, so e.g. C<ev_is_active> might still return true. It is your
-responsibility to either stop all watchers cleanly yoursef I<before>
-calling this function, or cope with the fact afterwards (which is usually
-the easiest thing, you can just ignore the watchers and/or C<free ()> them
-for example).
-
-Note that certain global state, such as signal state, will not be freed by
-this function, and related watchers (such as signal and child watchers)
-would need to be stopped manually.
-
-In general it is not advisable to call this function except in the
-rare occasion where you really need to free e.g. the signal handling
-pipe fds. If you need dynamically allocated loops it is better to use
-C<ev_loop_new> and C<ev_loop_destroy>).
-
-=item ev_loop_destroy (loop)
-
-Like C<ev_default_destroy>, but destroys an event loop created by an
-earlier call to C<ev_loop_new>.
-
-=item ev_default_fork ()
-
-This function sets a flag that causes subsequent C<ev_loop> iterations
-to reinitialise the kernel state for backends that have one. Despite the
-name, you can call it anytime, but it makes most sense after forking, in
-the child process (or both child and parent, but that again makes little
-sense). You I<must> call it in the child before using any of the libev
-functions, and it will only take effect at the next C<ev_loop> iteration.
-
-On the other hand, you only need to call this function in the child
-process if and only if you want to use the event library in the child. If
-you just fork+exec, you don't have to call it at all.
-
-The function itself is quite fast and it's usually not a problem to call
-it just in case after a fork. To make this easy, the function will fit in
-quite nicely into a call to C<pthread_atfork>:
-
-    pthread_atfork (0, 0, ev_default_fork);
-
-=item ev_loop_fork (loop)
-
-Like C<ev_default_fork>, but acts on an event loop created by
-C<ev_loop_new>. Yes, you have to call this on every allocated event loop
-after fork, and how you do this is entirely your own problem.
-
-=item int ev_is_default_loop (loop)
-
-Returns true when the given loop actually is the default loop, false otherwise.
-
-=item unsigned int ev_loop_count (loop)
-
-Returns the count of loop iterations for the loop, which is identical to
-the number of times libev did poll for new events. It starts at C<0> and
-happily wraps around with enough iterations.
-
-This value can sometimes be useful as a generation counter of sorts (it
-"ticks" the number of loop iterations), as it roughly corresponds with
-C<ev_prepare> and C<ev_check> calls.
-
-=item unsigned int ev_backend (loop)
-
-Returns one of the C<EVBACKEND_*> flags indicating the event backend in
-use.
-
-=item ev_tstamp ev_now (loop)
-
-Returns the current "event loop time", which is the time the event loop
-received events and started processing them. This timestamp does not
-change as long as callbacks are being processed, and this is also the base
-time used for relative timers. You can treat it as the timestamp of the
-event occurring (or more correctly, libev finding out about it).
-
-=item ev_loop (loop, int flags)
-
-Finally, this is it, the event handler. This function usually is called
-after you initialised all your watchers and you want to start handling
-events.
-
-If the flags argument is specified as C<0>, it will not return until
-either no event watchers are active anymore or C<ev_unloop> was called.
-
-Please note that an explicit C<ev_unloop> is usually better than
-relying on all watchers to be stopped when deciding when a program has
-finished (especially in interactive programs), but having a program that
-automatically loops as long as it has to and no longer by virtue of
-relying on its watchers stopping correctly is a thing of beauty.
-
-A flags value of C<EVLOOP_NONBLOCK> will look for new events, will handle
-those events and any outstanding ones, but will not block your process in
-case there are no events and will return after one iteration of the loop.
-
-A flags value of C<EVLOOP_ONESHOT> will look for new events (waiting if
-neccessary) and will handle those and any outstanding ones. It will block
-your process until at least one new event arrives, and will return after
-one iteration of the loop. This is useful if you are waiting for some
-external event in conjunction with something not expressible using other
-libev watchers. However, a pair of C<ev_prepare>/C<ev_check> watchers is
-usually a better approach for this kind of thing.
-
-Here are the gory details of what C<ev_loop> does:
-
-   - Before the first iteration, call any pending watchers.
-   * If EVFLAG_FORKCHECK was used, check for a fork.
-   - If a fork was detected, queue and call all fork watchers.
-   - Queue and call all prepare watchers.
-   - If we have been forked, recreate the kernel state.
-   - Update the kernel state with all outstanding changes.
-   - Update the "event loop time".
-   - Calculate for how long to sleep or block, if at all
-     (active idle watchers, EVLOOP_NONBLOCK or not having
-     any active watchers at all will result in not sleeping).
-   - Sleep if the I/O and timer collect interval say so.
-   - Block the process, waiting for any events.
-   - Queue all outstanding I/O (fd) events.
-   - Update the "event loop time" and do time jump handling.
-   - Queue all outstanding timers.
-   - Queue all outstanding periodics.
-   - If no events are pending now, queue all idle watchers.
-   - Queue all check watchers.
-   - Call all queued watchers in reverse order (i.e. check watchers first).
-     Signals and child watchers are implemented as I/O watchers, and will
-     be handled here by queueing them when their watcher gets executed.
-   - If ev_unloop has been called, or EVLOOP_ONESHOT or EVLOOP_NONBLOCK
-     were used, or there are no active watchers, return, otherwise
-     continue with step *.
-
-Example: Queue some jobs and then loop until no events are outstanding
-anymore.
-
-   ... queue jobs here, make sure they register event watchers as long
-   ... as they still have work to do (even an idle watcher will do..)
-   ev_loop (my_loop, 0);
-   ... jobs done. yeah!
-
-=item ev_unloop (loop, how)
-
-Can be used to make a call to C<ev_loop> return early (but only after it
-has processed all outstanding events). The C<how> argument must be either
-C<EVUNLOOP_ONE>, which will make the innermost C<ev_loop> call return, or
-C<EVUNLOOP_ALL>, which will make all nested C<ev_loop> calls return.
-
-This "unloop state" will be cleared when entering C<ev_loop> again.
-
-=item ev_ref (loop)
-
-=item ev_unref (loop)
-
-Ref/unref can be used to add or remove a reference count on the event
-loop: Every watcher keeps one reference, and as long as the reference
-count is nonzero, C<ev_loop> will not return on its own. If you have
-a watcher you never unregister that should not keep C<ev_loop> from
-returning, ev_unref() after starting, and ev_ref() before stopping it. For
-example, libev itself uses this for its internal signal pipe: It is not
-visible to the libev user and should not keep C<ev_loop> from exiting if
-no event watchers registered by it are active. It is also an excellent
-way to do this for generic recurring timers or from within third-party
-libraries. Just remember to I<unref after start> and I<ref before stop>
-(but only if the watcher wasn't active before, or was active before,
-respectively).
-
-Example: Create a signal watcher, but keep it from keeping C<ev_loop>
-running when nothing else is active.
-
-  struct ev_signal exitsig;
-  ev_signal_init (&exitsig, sig_cb, SIGINT);
-  ev_signal_start (loop, &exitsig);
-  evf_unref (loop);
-
-Example: For some weird reason, unregister the above signal handler again.
-
-  ev_ref (loop);
-  ev_signal_stop (loop, &exitsig);
-
-=item ev_set_io_collect_interval (loop, ev_tstamp interval)
-
-=item ev_set_timeout_collect_interval (loop, ev_tstamp interval)
-
-These advanced functions influence the time that libev will spend waiting
-for events. Both are by default C<0>, meaning that libev will try to
-invoke timer/periodic callbacks and I/O callbacks with minimum latency.
-
-Setting these to a higher value (the C<interval> I<must> be >= C<0>)
-allows libev to delay invocation of I/O and timer/periodic callbacks to
-increase efficiency of loop iterations.
-
-The background is that sometimes your program runs just fast enough to
-handle one (or very few) event(s) per loop iteration. While this makes
-the program responsive, it also wastes a lot of CPU time to poll for new
-events, especially with backends like C<select ()> which have a high
-overhead for the actual polling but can deliver many events at once.
-
-By setting a higher I<io collect interval> you allow libev to spend more
-time collecting I/O events, so you can handle more events per iteration,
-at the cost of increasing latency. Timeouts (both C<ev_periodic> and
-C<ev_timer>) will be not affected. Setting this to a non-null value will
-introduce an additional C<ev_sleep ()> call into most loop iterations.
-
-Likewise, by setting a higher I<timeout collect interval> you allow libev
-to spend more time collecting timeouts, at the expense of increased
-latency (the watcher callback will be called later). C<ev_io> watchers
-will not be affected. Setting this to a non-null value will not introduce
-any overhead in libev.
-
-Many (busy) programs can usually benefit by setting the io collect
-interval to a value near C<0.1> or so, which is often enough for
-interactive servers (of course not for games), likewise for timeouts. It
-usually doesn't make much sense to set it to a lower value than C<0.01>,
-as this approsaches the timing granularity of most systems.
-
-=back
-
-
-=head1 ANATOMY OF A WATCHER
-
-A watcher is a structure that you create and register to record your
-interest in some event. For instance, if you want to wait for STDIN to
-become readable, you would create an C<ev_io> watcher for that:
-
-  static void my_cb (struct ev_loop *loop, struct ev_io *w, int revents)
-  {
-    ev_io_stop (w);
-    ev_unloop (loop, EVUNLOOP_ALL);
-  }
-
-  struct ev_loop *loop = ev_default_loop (0);
-  struct ev_io stdin_watcher;
-  ev_init (&stdin_watcher, my_cb);
-  ev_io_set (&stdin_watcher, STDIN_FILENO, EV_READ);
-  ev_io_start (loop, &stdin_watcher);
-  ev_loop (loop, 0);
-
-As you can see, you are responsible for allocating the memory for your
-watcher structures (and it is usually a bad idea to do this on the stack,
-although this can sometimes be quite valid).
-
-Each watcher structure must be initialised by a call to C<ev_init
-(watcher *, callback)>, which expects a callback to be provided. This
-callback gets invoked each time the event occurs (or, in the case of io
-watchers, each time the event loop detects that the file descriptor given
-is readable and/or writable).
-
-Each watcher type has its own C<< ev_<type>_set (watcher *, ...) >> macro
-with arguments specific to this watcher type. There is also a macro
-to combine initialisation and setting in one call: C<< ev_<type>_init
-(watcher *, callback, ...) >>.
-
-To make the watcher actually watch out for events, you have to start it
-with a watcher-specific start function (C<< ev_<type>_start (loop, watcher
-*) >>), and you can stop watching for events at any time by calling the
-corresponding stop function (C<< ev_<type>_stop (loop, watcher *) >>.
-
-As long as your watcher is active (has been started but not stopped) you
-must not touch the values stored in it. Most specifically you must never
-reinitialise it or call its C<set> macro.
-
-Each and every callback receives the event loop pointer as first, the
-registered watcher structure as second, and a bitset of received events as
-third argument.
-
-The received events usually include a single bit per event type received
-(you can receive multiple events at the same time). The possible bit masks
-are:
-
-=over 4
-
-=item C<EV_READ>
-
-=item C<EV_WRITE>
-
-The file descriptor in the C<ev_io> watcher has become readable and/or
-writable.
-
-=item C<EV_TIMEOUT>
-
-The C<ev_timer> watcher has timed out.
-
-=item C<EV_PERIODIC>
-
-The C<ev_periodic> watcher has timed out.
-
-=item C<EV_SIGNAL>
-
-The signal specified in the C<ev_signal> watcher has been received by a thread.
-
-=item C<EV_CHILD>
-
-The pid specified in the C<ev_child> watcher has received a status change.
-
-=item C<EV_STAT>
-
-The path specified in the C<ev_stat> watcher changed its attributes somehow.
-
-=item C<EV_IDLE>
-
-The C<ev_idle> watcher has determined that you have nothing better to do.
-
-=item C<EV_PREPARE>
-
-=item C<EV_CHECK>
-
-All C<ev_prepare> watchers are invoked just I<before> C<ev_loop> starts
-to gather new events, and all C<ev_check> watchers are invoked just after
-C<ev_loop> has gathered them, but before it invokes any callbacks for any
-received events. Callbacks of both watcher types can start and stop as
-many watchers as they want, and all of them will be taken into account
-(for example, a C<ev_prepare> watcher might start an idle watcher to keep
-C<ev_loop> from blocking).
-
-=item C<EV_EMBED>
-
-The embedded event loop specified in the C<ev_embed> watcher needs attention.
-
-=item C<EV_FORK>
-
-The event loop has been resumed in the child process after fork (see
-C<ev_fork>).
-
-=item C<EV_ASYNC>
-
-The given async watcher has been asynchronously notified (see C<ev_async>).
-
-=item C<EV_ERROR>
-
-An unspecified error has occured, the watcher has been stopped. This might
-happen because the watcher could not be properly started because libev
-ran out of memory, a file descriptor was found to be closed or any other
-problem. You best act on it by reporting the problem and somehow coping
-with the watcher being stopped.
-
-Libev will usually signal a few "dummy" events together with an error,
-for example it might indicate that a fd is readable or writable, and if
-your callbacks is well-written it can just attempt the operation and cope
-with the error from read() or write(). This will not work in multithreaded
-programs, though, so beware.
-
-=back
-
-=head2 GENERIC WATCHER FUNCTIONS
-
-In the following description, C<TYPE> stands for the watcher type,
-e.g. C<timer> for C<ev_timer> watchers and C<io> for C<ev_io> watchers.
-
-=over 4
-
-=item C<ev_init> (ev_TYPE *watcher, callback)
-
-This macro initialises the generic portion of a watcher. The contents
-of the watcher object can be arbitrary (so C<malloc> will do). Only
-the generic parts of the watcher are initialised, you I<need> to call
-the type-specific C<ev_TYPE_set> macro afterwards to initialise the
-type-specific parts. For each type there is also a C<ev_TYPE_init> macro
-which rolls both calls into one.
-
-You can reinitialise a watcher at any time as long as it has been stopped
-(or never started) and there are no pending events outstanding.
-
-The callback is always of type C<void (*)(ev_loop *loop, ev_TYPE *watcher,
-int revents)>.
-
-=item C<ev_TYPE_set> (ev_TYPE *, [args])
-
-This macro initialises the type-specific parts of a watcher. You need to
-call C<ev_init> at least once before you call this macro, but you can
-call C<ev_TYPE_set> any number of times. You must not, however, call this
-macro on a watcher that is active (it can be pending, however, which is a
-difference to the C<ev_init> macro).
-
-Although some watcher types do not have type-specific arguments
-(e.g. C<ev_prepare>) you still need to call its C<set> macro.
-
-=item C<ev_TYPE_init> (ev_TYPE *watcher, callback, [args])
-
-This convinience macro rolls both C<ev_init> and C<ev_TYPE_set> macro
-calls into a single call. This is the most convinient method to initialise
-a watcher. The same limitations apply, of course.
-
-=item C<ev_TYPE_start> (loop *, ev_TYPE *watcher)
-
-Starts (activates) the given watcher. Only active watchers will receive
-events. If the watcher is already active nothing will happen.
-
-=item C<ev_TYPE_stop> (loop *, ev_TYPE *watcher)
-
-Stops the given watcher again (if active) and clears the pending
-status. It is possible that stopped watchers are pending (for example,
-non-repeating timers are being stopped when they become pending), but
-C<ev_TYPE_stop> ensures that the watcher is neither active nor pending. If
-you want to free or reuse the memory used by the watcher it is therefore a
-good idea to always call its C<ev_TYPE_stop> function.
-
-=item bool ev_is_active (ev_TYPE *watcher)
-
-Returns a true value iff the watcher is active (i.e. it has been started
-and not yet been stopped). As long as a watcher is active you must not modify
-it.
-
-=item bool ev_is_pending (ev_TYPE *watcher)
-
-Returns a true value iff the watcher is pending, (i.e. it has outstanding
-events but its callback has not yet been invoked). As long as a watcher
-is pending (but not active) you must not call an init function on it (but
-C<ev_TYPE_set> is safe), you must not change its priority, and you must
-make sure the watcher is available to libev (e.g. you cannot C<free ()>
-it).
-
-=item callback ev_cb (ev_TYPE *watcher)
-
-Returns the callback currently set on the watcher.
-
-=item ev_cb_set (ev_TYPE *watcher, callback)
-
-Change the callback. You can change the callback at virtually any time
-(modulo threads).
-
-=item ev_set_priority (ev_TYPE *watcher, priority)
-
-=item int ev_priority (ev_TYPE *watcher)
-
-Set and query the priority of the watcher. The priority is a small
-integer between C<EV_MAXPRI> (default: C<2>) and C<EV_MINPRI>
-(default: C<-2>). Pending watchers with higher priority will be invoked
-before watchers with lower priority, but priority will not keep watchers
-from being executed (except for C<ev_idle> watchers).
-
-This means that priorities are I<only> used for ordering callback
-invocation after new events have been received. This is useful, for
-example, to reduce latency after idling, or more often, to bind two
-watchers on the same event and make sure one is called first.
-
-If you need to suppress invocation when higher priority events are pending
-you need to look at C<ev_idle> watchers, which provide this functionality.
-
-You I<must not> change the priority of a watcher as long as it is active or
-pending.
-
-The default priority used by watchers when no priority has been set is
-always C<0>, which is supposed to not be too high and not be too low :).
-
-Setting a priority outside the range of C<EV_MINPRI> to C<EV_MAXPRI> is
-fine, as long as you do not mind that the priority value you query might
-or might not have been adjusted to be within valid range.
-
-=item ev_invoke (loop, ev_TYPE *watcher, int revents)
-
-Invoke the C<watcher> with the given C<loop> and C<revents>. Neither
-C<loop> nor C<revents> need to be valid as long as the watcher callback
-can deal with that fact.
-
-=item int ev_clear_pending (loop, ev_TYPE *watcher)
-
-If the watcher is pending, this function returns clears its pending status
-and returns its C<revents> bitset (as if its callback was invoked). If the
-watcher isn't pending it does nothing and returns C<0>.
-
-=back
-
-
-=head2 ASSOCIATING CUSTOM DATA WITH A WATCHER
-
-Each watcher has, by default, a member C<void *data> that you can change
-and read at any time, libev will completely ignore it. This can be used
-to associate arbitrary data with your watcher. If you need more data and
-don't want to allocate memory and store a pointer to it in that data
-member, you can also "subclass" the watcher type and provide your own
-data:
-
-  struct my_io
-  {
-    struct ev_io io;
-    int otherfd;
-    void *somedata;
-    struct whatever *mostinteresting;
-  }
-
-And since your callback will be called with a pointer to the watcher, you
-can cast it back to your own type:
-
-  static void my_cb (struct ev_loop *loop, struct ev_io *w_, int revents)
-  {
-    struct my_io *w = (struct my_io *)w_;
-    ...
-  }
-
-More interesting and less C-conformant ways of casting your callback type
-instead have been omitted.
-
-Another common scenario is having some data structure with multiple
-watchers:
-
-  struct my_biggy
-  {
-    int some_data;
-    ev_timer t1;
-    ev_timer t2;
-  }
-
-In this case getting the pointer to C<my_biggy> is a bit more complicated,
-you need to use C<offsetof>:
-
-  #include <stddef.h>
-
-  static void
-  t1_cb (EV_P_ struct ev_timer *w, int revents)
-  {
-    struct my_biggy big = (struct my_biggy *
-      (((char *)w) - offsetof (struct my_biggy, t1));
-  }
-
-  static void
-  t2_cb (EV_P_ struct ev_timer *w, int revents)
-  {
-    struct my_biggy big = (struct my_biggy *
-      (((char *)w) - offsetof (struct my_biggy, t2));
-  }
-
-
-=head1 WATCHER TYPES
-
-This section describes each watcher in detail, but will not repeat
-information given in the last section. Any initialisation/set macros,
-functions and members specific to the watcher type are explained.
-
-Members are additionally marked with either I<[read-only]>, meaning that,
-while the watcher is active, you can look at the member and expect some
-sensible content, but you must not modify it (you can modify it while the
-watcher is stopped to your hearts content), or I<[read-write]>, which
-means you can expect it to have some sensible content while the watcher
-is active, but you can also modify it. Modifying it may not do something
-sensible or take immediate effect (or do anything at all), but libev will
-not crash or malfunction in any way.
-
-
-=head2 C<ev_io> - is this file descriptor readable or writable?
-
-I/O watchers check whether a file descriptor is readable or writable
-in each iteration of the event loop, or, more precisely, when reading
-would not block the process and writing would at least be able to write
-some data. This behaviour is called level-triggering because you keep
-receiving events as long as the condition persists. Remember you can stop
-the watcher if you don't want to act on the event and neither want to
-receive future events.
-
-In general you can register as many read and/or write event watchers per
-fd as you want (as long as you don't confuse yourself). Setting all file
-descriptors to non-blocking mode is also usually a good idea (but not
-required if you know what you are doing).
-
-If you must do this, then force the use of a known-to-be-good backend
-(at the time of this writing, this includes only C<EVBACKEND_SELECT> and
-C<EVBACKEND_POLL>).
-
-Another thing you have to watch out for is that it is quite easy to
-receive "spurious" readyness notifications, that is your callback might
-be called with C<EV_READ> but a subsequent C<read>(2) will actually block
-because there is no data. Not only are some backends known to create a
-lot of those (for example solaris ports), it is very easy to get into
-this situation even with a relatively standard program structure. Thus
-it is best to always use non-blocking I/O: An extra C<read>(2) returning
-C<EAGAIN> is far preferable to a program hanging until some data arrives.
-
-If you cannot run the fd in non-blocking mode (for example you should not
-play around with an Xlib connection), then you have to seperately re-test
-whether a file descriptor is really ready with a known-to-be good interface
-such as poll (fortunately in our Xlib example, Xlib already does this on
-its own, so its quite safe to use).
-
-=head3 The special problem of disappearing file descriptors
-
-Some backends (e.g. kqueue, epoll) need to be told about closing a file
-descriptor (either by calling C<close> explicitly or by any other means,
-such as C<dup>). The reason is that you register interest in some file
-descriptor, but when it goes away, the operating system will silently drop
-this interest. If another file descriptor with the same number then is
-registered with libev, there is no efficient way to see that this is, in
-fact, a different file descriptor.
-
-To avoid having to explicitly tell libev about such cases, libev follows
-the following policy:  Each time C<ev_io_set> is being called, libev
-will assume that this is potentially a new file descriptor, otherwise
-it is assumed that the file descriptor stays the same. That means that
-you I<have> to call C<ev_io_set> (or C<ev_io_init>) when you change the
-descriptor even if the file descriptor number itself did not change.
-
-This is how one would do it normally anyway, the important point is that
-the libev application should not optimise around libev but should leave
-optimisations to libev.
-
-=head3 The special problem of dup'ed file descriptors
-
-Some backends (e.g. epoll), cannot register events for file descriptors,
-but only events for the underlying file descriptions. That means when you
-have C<dup ()>'ed file descriptors or weirder constellations, and register
-events for them, only one file descriptor might actually receive events.
-
-There is no workaround possible except not registering events
-for potentially C<dup ()>'ed file descriptors, or to resort to
-C<EVBACKEND_SELECT> or C<EVBACKEND_POLL>.
-
-=head3 The special problem of fork
-
-Some backends (epoll, kqueue) do not support C<fork ()> at all or exhibit
-useless behaviour. Libev fully supports fork, but needs to be told about
-it in the child.
-
-To support fork in your programs, you either have to call
-C<ev_default_fork ()> or C<ev_loop_fork ()> after a fork in the child,
-enable C<EVFLAG_FORKCHECK>, or resort to C<EVBACKEND_SELECT> or
-C<EVBACKEND_POLL>.
-
-=head3 The special problem of SIGPIPE
-
-While not really specific to libev, it is easy to forget about SIGPIPE:
-when reading from a pipe whose other end has been closed, your program
-gets send a SIGPIPE, which, by default, aborts your program. For most
-programs this is sensible behaviour, for daemons, this is usually
-undesirable.
-
-So when you encounter spurious, unexplained daemon exits, make sure you
-ignore SIGPIPE (and maybe make sure you log the exit status of your daemon
-somewhere, as that would have given you a big clue).
-
-
-=head3 Watcher-Specific Functions
-
-=over 4
-
-=item ev_io_init (ev_io *, callback, int fd, int events)
-
-=item ev_io_set (ev_io *, int fd, int events)
-
-Configures an C<ev_io> watcher. The C<fd> is the file descriptor to
-rceeive events for and events is either C<EV_READ>, C<EV_WRITE> or
-C<EV_READ | EV_WRITE> to receive the given events.
-
-=item int fd [read-only]
-
-The file descriptor being watched.
-
-=item int events [read-only]
-
-The events being watched.
-
-=back
-
-=head3 Examples
-
-Example: Call C<stdin_readable_cb> when STDIN_FILENO has become, well
-readable, but only once. Since it is likely line-buffered, you could
-attempt to read a whole line in the callback.
-
-  static void
-  stdin_readable_cb (struct ev_loop *loop, struct ev_io *w, int revents)
-  {
-     ev_io_stop (loop, w);
-    .. read from stdin here (or from w->fd) and haqndle any I/O errors
-  }
-
-  ...
-  struct ev_loop *loop = ev_default_init (0);
-  struct ev_io stdin_readable;
-  ev_io_init (&stdin_readable, stdin_readable_cb, STDIN_FILENO, EV_READ);
-  ev_io_start (loop, &stdin_readable);
-  ev_loop (loop, 0);
-
-
-=head2 C<ev_timer> - relative and optionally repeating timeouts
-
-Timer watchers are simple relative timers that generate an event after a
-given time, and optionally repeating in regular intervals after that.
-
-The timers are based on real time, that is, if you register an event that
-times out after an hour and you reset your system clock to last years
-time, it will still time out after (roughly) and hour. "Roughly" because
-detecting time jumps is hard, and some inaccuracies are unavoidable (the
-monotonic clock option helps a lot here).
-
-The relative timeouts are calculated relative to the C<ev_now ()>
-time. This is usually the right thing as this timestamp refers to the time
-of the event triggering whatever timeout you are modifying/starting. If
-you suspect event processing to be delayed and you I<need> to base the timeout
-on the current time, use something like this to adjust for this:
-
-   ev_timer_set (&timer, after + ev_now () - ev_time (), 0.);
-
-The callback is guarenteed to be invoked only when its timeout has passed,
-but if multiple timers become ready during the same loop iteration then
-order of execution is undefined.
-
-=head3 Watcher-Specific Functions and Data Members
-
-=over 4
-
-=item ev_timer_init (ev_timer *, callback, ev_tstamp after, ev_tstamp repeat)
-
-=item ev_timer_set (ev_timer *, ev_tstamp after, ev_tstamp repeat)
-
-Configure the timer to trigger after C<after> seconds. If C<repeat> is
-C<0.>, then it will automatically be stopped. If it is positive, then the
-timer will automatically be configured to trigger again C<repeat> seconds
-later, again, and again, until stopped manually.
-
-The timer itself will do a best-effort at avoiding drift, that is, if you
-configure a timer to trigger every 10 seconds, then it will trigger at
-exactly 10 second intervals. If, however, your program cannot keep up with
-the timer (because it takes longer than those 10 seconds to do stuff) the
-timer will not fire more than once per event loop iteration.
-
-=item ev_timer_again (loop, ev_timer *)
-
-This will act as if the timer timed out and restart it again if it is
-repeating. The exact semantics are:
-
-If the timer is pending, its pending status is cleared.
-
-If the timer is started but nonrepeating, stop it (as if it timed out).
-
-If the timer is repeating, either start it if necessary (with the
-C<repeat> value), or reset the running timer to the C<repeat> value.
-
-This sounds a bit complicated, but here is a useful and typical
-example: Imagine you have a tcp connection and you want a so-called idle
-timeout, that is, you want to be called when there have been, say, 60
-seconds of inactivity on the socket. The easiest way to do this is to
-configure an C<ev_timer> with a C<repeat> value of C<60> and then call
-C<ev_timer_again> each time you successfully read or write some data. If
-you go into an idle state where you do not expect data to travel on the
-socket, you can C<ev_timer_stop> the timer, and C<ev_timer_again> will
-automatically restart it if need be.
-
-That means you can ignore the C<after> value and C<ev_timer_start>
-altogether and only ever use the C<repeat> value and C<ev_timer_again>:
-
-   ev_timer_init (timer, callback, 0., 5.);
-   ev_timer_again (loop, timer);
-   ...
-   timer->again = 17.;
-   ev_timer_again (loop, timer);
-   ...
-   timer->again = 10.;
-   ev_timer_again (loop, timer);
-
-This is more slightly efficient then stopping/starting the timer each time
-you want to modify its timeout value.
-
-=item ev_tstamp repeat [read-write]
-
-The current C<repeat> value. Will be used each time the watcher times out
-or C<ev_timer_again> is called and determines the next timeout (if any),
-which is also when any modifications are taken into account.
-
-=back
-
-=head3 Examples
-
-Example: Create a timer that fires after 60 seconds.
-
-  static void
-  one_minute_cb (struct ev_loop *loop, struct ev_timer *w, int revents)
-  {
-    .. one minute over, w is actually stopped right here
-  }
-
-  struct ev_timer mytimer;
-  ev_timer_init (&mytimer, one_minute_cb, 60., 0.);
-  ev_timer_start (loop, &mytimer);
-
-Example: Create a timeout timer that times out after 10 seconds of
-inactivity.
-
-  static void
-  timeout_cb (struct ev_loop *loop, struct ev_timer *w, int revents)
-  {
-    .. ten seconds without any activity
-  }
-
-  struct ev_timer mytimer;
-  ev_timer_init (&mytimer, timeout_cb, 0., 10.); /* note, only repeat used */
-  ev_timer_again (&mytimer); /* start timer */
-  ev_loop (loop, 0);
-
-  // and in some piece of code that gets executed on any "activity":
-  // reset the timeout to start ticking again at 10 seconds
-  ev_timer_again (&mytimer);
-
-
-=head2 C<ev_periodic> - to cron or not to cron?
-
-Periodic watchers are also timers of a kind, but they are very versatile
-(and unfortunately a bit complex).
-
-Unlike C<ev_timer>'s, they are not based on real time (or relative time)
-but on wallclock time (absolute time). You can tell a periodic watcher
-to trigger "at" some specific point in time. For example, if you tell a
-periodic watcher to trigger in 10 seconds (by specifiying e.g. C<ev_now ()
-+ 10.>) and then reset your system clock to the last year, then it will
-take a year to trigger the event (unlike an C<ev_timer>, which would trigger
-roughly 10 seconds later).
-
-They can also be used to implement vastly more complex timers, such as
-triggering an event on each midnight, local time or other, complicated,
-rules.
-
-As with timers, the callback is guarenteed to be invoked only when the
-time (C<at>) has been passed, but if multiple periodic timers become ready
-during the same loop iteration then order of execution is undefined.
-
-=head3 Watcher-Specific Functions and Data Members
-
-=over 4
-
-=item ev_periodic_init (ev_periodic *, callback, ev_tstamp at, ev_tstamp interval, reschedule_cb)
-
-=item ev_periodic_set (ev_periodic *, ev_tstamp after, ev_tstamp repeat, reschedule_cb)
-
-Lots of arguments, lets sort it out... There are basically three modes of
-operation, and we will explain them from simplest to complex:
-
-=over 4
-
-=item * absolute timer (at = time, interval = reschedule_cb = 0)
-
-In this configuration the watcher triggers an event at the wallclock time
-C<at> and doesn't repeat. It will not adjust when a time jump occurs,
-that is, if it is to be run at January 1st 2011 then it will run when the
-system time reaches or surpasses this time.
-
-=item * repeating interval timer (at = offset, interval > 0, reschedule_cb = 0)
-
-In this mode the watcher will always be scheduled to time out at the next
-C<at + N * interval> time (for some integer N, which can also be negative)
-and then repeat, regardless of any time jumps.
-
-This can be used to create timers that do not drift with respect to system
-time:
-
-   ev_periodic_set (&periodic, 0., 3600., 0);
-
-This doesn't mean there will always be 3600 seconds in between triggers,
-but only that the the callback will be called when the system time shows a
-full hour (UTC), or more correctly, when the system time is evenly divisible
-by 3600.
-
-Another way to think about it (for the mathematically inclined) is that
-C<ev_periodic> will try to run the callback in this mode at the next possible
-time where C<time = at (mod interval)>, regardless of any time jumps.
-
-For numerical stability it is preferable that the C<at> value is near
-C<ev_now ()> (the current time), but there is no range requirement for
-this value.
-
-=item * manual reschedule mode (at and interval ignored, reschedule_cb = callback)
-
-In this mode the values for C<interval> and C<at> are both being
-ignored. Instead, each time the periodic watcher gets scheduled, the
-reschedule callback will be called with the watcher as first, and the
-current time as second argument.
-
-NOTE: I<This callback MUST NOT stop or destroy any periodic watcher,
-ever, or make any event loop modifications>. If you need to stop it,
-return C<now + 1e30> (or so, fudge fudge) and stop it afterwards (e.g. by
-starting an C<ev_prepare> watcher, which is legal).
-
-Its prototype is C<ev_tstamp (*reschedule_cb)(struct ev_periodic *w,
-ev_tstamp now)>, e.g.:
-
-   static ev_tstamp my_rescheduler (struct ev_periodic *w, ev_tstamp now)
-   {
-     return now + 60.;
-   }
-
-It must return the next time to trigger, based on the passed time value
-(that is, the lowest time value larger than to the second argument). It
-will usually be called just before the callback will be triggered, but
-might be called at other times, too.
-
-NOTE: I<< This callback must always return a time that is later than the
-passed C<now> value >>. Not even C<now> itself will do, it I<must> be larger.
-
-This can be used to create very complex timers, such as a timer that
-triggers on each midnight, local time. To do this, you would calculate the
-next midnight after C<now> and return the timestamp value for this. How
-you do this is, again, up to you (but it is not trivial, which is the main
-reason I omitted it as an example).
-
-=back
-
-=item ev_periodic_again (loop, ev_periodic *)
-
-Simply stops and restarts the periodic watcher again. This is only useful
-when you changed some parameters or the reschedule callback would return
-a different time than the last time it was called (e.g. in a crond like
-program when the crontabs have changed).
-
-=item ev_tstamp offset [read-write]
-
-When repeating, this contains the offset value, otherwise this is the
-absolute point in time (the C<at> value passed to C<ev_periodic_set>).
-
-Can be modified any time, but changes only take effect when the periodic
-timer fires or C<ev_periodic_again> is being called.
-
-=item ev_tstamp interval [read-write]
-
-The current interval value. Can be modified any time, but changes only
-take effect when the periodic timer fires or C<ev_periodic_again> is being
-called.
-
-=item ev_tstamp (*reschedule_cb)(struct ev_periodic *w, ev_tstamp now) [read-write]
-
-The current reschedule callback, or C<0>, if this functionality is
-switched off. Can be changed any time, but changes only take effect when
-the periodic timer fires or C<ev_periodic_again> is being called.
-
-=item ev_tstamp at [read-only]
-
-When active, contains the absolute time that the watcher is supposed to
-trigger next.
-
-=back
-
-=head3 Examples
-
-Example: Call a callback every hour, or, more precisely, whenever the
-system clock is divisible by 3600. The callback invocation times have
-potentially a lot of jittering, but good long-term stability.
-
-  static void
-  clock_cb (struct ev_loop *loop, struct ev_io *w, int revents)
-  {
-    ... its now a full hour (UTC, or TAI or whatever your clock follows)
-  }
-
-  struct ev_periodic hourly_tick;
-  ev_periodic_init (&hourly_tick, clock_cb, 0., 3600., 0);
-  ev_periodic_start (loop, &hourly_tick);
-
-Example: The same as above, but use a reschedule callback to do it:
-
-  #include <math.h>
-
-  static ev_tstamp
-  my_scheduler_cb (struct ev_periodic *w, ev_tstamp now)
-  {
-    return fmod (now, 3600.) + 3600.;
-  }
-
-  ev_periodic_init (&hourly_tick, clock_cb, 0., 0., my_scheduler_cb);
-
-Example: Call a callback every hour, starting now:
-
-  struct ev_periodic hourly_tick;
-  ev_periodic_init (&hourly_tick, clock_cb,
-                    fmod (ev_now (loop), 3600.), 3600., 0);
-  ev_periodic_start (loop, &hourly_tick);
-  
-
-=head2 C<ev_signal> - signal me when a signal gets signalled!
-
-Signal watchers will trigger an event when the process receives a specific
-signal one or more times. Even though signals are very asynchronous, libev
-will try it's best to deliver signals synchronously, i.e. as part of the
-normal event processing, like any other event.
-
-You can configure as many watchers as you like per signal. Only when the
-first watcher gets started will libev actually register a signal watcher
-with the kernel (thus it coexists with your own signal handlers as long
-as you don't register any with libev). Similarly, when the last signal
-watcher for a signal is stopped libev will reset the signal handler to
-SIG_DFL (regardless of what it was set to before).
-
-If possible and supported, libev will install its handlers with
-C<SA_RESTART> behaviour enabled, so syscalls should not be unduly
-interrupted. If you have a problem with syscalls getting interrupted by
-signals you can block all signals in an C<ev_check> watcher and unblock
-them in an C<ev_prepare> watcher.
-
-=head3 Watcher-Specific Functions and Data Members
-
-=over 4
-
-=item ev_signal_init (ev_signal *, callback, int signum)
-
-=item ev_signal_set (ev_signal *, int signum)
-
-Configures the watcher to trigger on the given signal number (usually one
-of the C<SIGxxx> constants).
-
-=item int signum [read-only]
-
-The signal the watcher watches out for.
-
-=back
-
-=head3 Examples
-
-Example: Try to exit cleanly on SIGINT and SIGTERM.
-
-  static void
-  sigint_cb (struct ev_loop *loop, struct ev_signal *w, int revents)
-  {
-    ev_unloop (loop, EVUNLOOP_ALL);
-  }
-
-  struct ev_signal signal_watcher;
-  ev_signal_init (&signal_watcher, sigint_cb, SIGINT);
-  ev_signal_start (loop, &sigint_cb);
-
-
-=head2 C<ev_child> - watch out for process status changes
-
-Child watchers trigger when your process receives a SIGCHLD in response to
-some child status changes (most typically when a child of yours dies). It
-is permissible to install a child watcher I<after> the child has been
-forked (which implies it might have already exited), as long as the event
-loop isn't entered (or is continued from a watcher).
-
-Only the default event loop is capable of handling signals, and therefore
-you can only rgeister child watchers in the default event loop.
-
-=head3 Process Interaction
-
-Libev grabs C<SIGCHLD> as soon as the default event loop is
-initialised. This is necessary to guarantee proper behaviour even if
-the first child watcher is started after the child exits. The occurance
-of C<SIGCHLD> is recorded asynchronously, but child reaping is done
-synchronously as part of the event loop processing. Libev always reaps all
-children, even ones not watched.
-
-=head3 Overriding the Built-In Processing
-
-Libev offers no special support for overriding the built-in child
-processing, but if your application collides with libev's default child
-handler, you can override it easily by installing your own handler for
-C<SIGCHLD> after initialising the default loop, and making sure the
-default loop never gets destroyed. You are encouraged, however, to use an
-event-based approach to child reaping and thus use libev's support for
-that, so other libev users can use C<ev_child> watchers freely.
-
-=head3 Watcher-Specific Functions and Data Members
-
-=over 4
-
-=item ev_child_init (ev_child *, callback, int pid, int trace)
-
-=item ev_child_set (ev_child *, int pid, int trace)
-
-Configures the watcher to wait for status changes of process C<pid> (or
-I<any> process if C<pid> is specified as C<0>). The callback can look
-at the C<rstatus> member of the C<ev_child> watcher structure to see
-the status word (use the macros from C<sys/wait.h> and see your systems
-C<waitpid> documentation). The C<rpid> member contains the pid of the
-process causing the status change. C<trace> must be either C<0> (only
-activate the watcher when the process terminates) or C<1> (additionally
-activate the watcher when the process is stopped or continued).
-
-=item int pid [read-only]
-
-The process id this watcher watches out for, or C<0>, meaning any process id.
-
-=item int rpid [read-write]
-
-The process id that detected a status change.
-
-=item int rstatus [read-write]
-
-The process exit/trace status caused by C<rpid> (see your systems
-C<waitpid> and C<sys/wait.h> documentation for details).
-
-=back
-
-=head3 Examples
-
-Example: C<fork()> a new process and install a child handler to wait for
-its completion.
-
-  ev_child cw;
-
-  static void
-  child_cb (EV_P_ struct ev_child *w, int revents)
-  {
-    ev_child_stop (EV_A_ w);
-    printf ("process %d exited with status %x\n", w->rpid, w->rstatus);
-  }
-
-  pid_t pid = fork ();
-
-  if (pid < 0)
-    // error
-  else if (pid == 0)
-    {
-      // the forked child executes here
-      exit (1);
-    }
-  else
-    {
-      ev_child_init (&cw, child_cb, pid, 0);
-      ev_child_start (EV_DEFAULT_ &cw);
-    }
-
-
-=head2 C<ev_stat> - did the file attributes just change?
-
-This watches a filesystem path for attribute changes. That is, it calls
-C<stat> regularly (or when the OS says it changed) and sees if it changed
-compared to the last time, invoking the callback if it did.
-
-The path does not need to exist: changing from "path exists" to "path does
-not exist" is a status change like any other. The condition "path does
-not exist" is signified by the C<st_nlink> field being zero (which is
-otherwise always forced to be at least one) and all the other fields of
-the stat buffer having unspecified contents.
-
-The path I<should> be absolute and I<must not> end in a slash. If it is
-relative and your working directory changes, the behaviour is undefined.
-
-Since there is no standard to do this, the portable implementation simply
-calls C<stat (2)> regularly on the path to see if it changed somehow. You
-can specify a recommended polling interval for this case. If you specify
-a polling interval of C<0> (highly recommended!) then a I<suitable,
-unspecified default> value will be used (which you can expect to be around
-five seconds, although this might change dynamically). Libev will also
-impose a minimum interval which is currently around C<0.1>, but thats
-usually overkill.
-
-This watcher type is not meant for massive numbers of stat watchers,
-as even with OS-supported change notifications, this can be
-resource-intensive.
-
-At the time of this writing, only the Linux inotify interface is
-implemented (implementing kqueue support is left as an exercise for the
-reader). Inotify will be used to give hints only and should not change the
-semantics of C<ev_stat> watchers, which means that libev sometimes needs
-to fall back to regular polling again even with inotify, but changes are
-usually detected immediately, and if the file exists there will be no
-polling.
-
-=head3 ABI Issues (Largefile Support)
-
-Libev by default (unless the user overrides this) uses the default
-compilation environment, which means that on systems with optionally
-disabled large file support, you get the 32 bit version of the stat
-structure. When using the library from programs that change the ABI to
-use 64 bit file offsets the programs will fail. In that case you have to
-compile libev with the same flags to get binary compatibility. This is
-obviously the case with any flags that change the ABI, but the problem is
-most noticably with ev_stat and largefile support.
-
-=head3 Inotify
-
-When C<inotify (7)> support has been compiled into libev (generally only
-available on Linux) and present at runtime, it will be used to speed up
-change detection where possible. The inotify descriptor will be created lazily
-when the first C<ev_stat> watcher is being started.
-
-Inotify presense does not change the semantics of C<ev_stat> watchers
-except that changes might be detected earlier, and in some cases, to avoid
-making regular C<stat> calls. Even in the presense of inotify support
-there are many cases where libev has to resort to regular C<stat> polling.
-
-(There is no support for kqueue, as apparently it cannot be used to
-implement this functionality, due to the requirement of having a file
-descriptor open on the object at all times).
-
-=head3 The special problem of stat time resolution
-
-The C<stat ()> syscall only supports full-second resolution portably, and
-even on systems where the resolution is higher, many filesystems still
-only support whole seconds.
-
-That means that, if the time is the only thing that changes, you might
-miss updates: on the first update, C<ev_stat> detects a change and calls
-your callback, which does something. When there is another update within
-the same second, C<ev_stat> will be unable to detect it.
-
-The solution to this is to delay acting on a change for a second (or till
-the next second boundary), using a roughly one-second delay C<ev_timer>
-(C<ev_timer_set (w, 0., 1.01); ev_timer_again (loop, w)>). The C<.01>
-is added to work around small timing inconsistencies of some operating
-systems.
-
-=head3 Watcher-Specific Functions and Data Members
-
-=over 4
-
-=item ev_stat_init (ev_stat *, callback, const char *path, ev_tstamp interval)
-
-=item ev_stat_set (ev_stat *, const char *path, ev_tstamp interval)
-
-Configures the watcher to wait for status changes of the given
-C<path>. The C<interval> is a hint on how quickly a change is expected to
-be detected and should normally be specified as C<0> to let libev choose
-a suitable value. The memory pointed to by C<path> must point to the same
-path for as long as the watcher is active.
-
-The callback will be receive C<EV_STAT> when a change was detected,
-relative to the attributes at the time the watcher was started (or the
-last change was detected).
-
-=item ev_stat_stat (loop, ev_stat *)
-
-Updates the stat buffer immediately with new values. If you change the
-watched path in your callback, you could call this fucntion to avoid
-detecting this change (while introducing a race condition). Can also be
-useful simply to find out the new values.
-
-=item ev_statdata attr [read-only]
-
-The most-recently detected attributes of the file. Although the type is of
-C<ev_statdata>, this is usually the (or one of the) C<struct stat> types
-suitable for your system. If the C<st_nlink> member is C<0>, then there
-was some error while C<stat>ing the file.
-
-=item ev_statdata prev [read-only]
-
-The previous attributes of the file. The callback gets invoked whenever
-C<prev> != C<attr>.
-
-=item ev_tstamp interval [read-only]
-
-The specified interval.
-
-=item const char *path [read-only]
-
-The filesystem path that is being watched.
-
-=back
-
-=head3 Examples
-
-Example: Watch C</etc/passwd> for attribute changes.
-
-  static void
-  passwd_cb (struct ev_loop *loop, ev_stat *w, int revents)
-  {
-    /* /etc/passwd changed in some way */
-    if (w->attr.st_nlink)
-      {
-        printf ("passwd current size  %ld\n", (long)w->attr.st_size);
-        printf ("passwd current atime %ld\n", (long)w->attr.st_mtime);
-        printf ("passwd current mtime %ld\n", (long)w->attr.st_mtime);
-      }
-    else
-      /* you shalt not abuse printf for puts */
-      puts ("wow, /etc/passwd is not there, expect problems. "
-            "if this is windows, they already arrived\n");
-  }
-
-  ...
-  ev_stat passwd;
-
-  ev_stat_init (&passwd, passwd_cb, "/etc/passwd", 0.);
-  ev_stat_start (loop, &passwd);
-
-Example: Like above, but additionally use a one-second delay so we do not
-miss updates (however, frequent updates will delay processing, too, so
-one might do the work both on C<ev_stat> callback invocation I<and> on
-C<ev_timer> callback invocation).
-
-  static ev_stat passwd;
-  static ev_timer timer;
-
-  static void
-  timer_cb (EV_P_ ev_timer *w, int revents)
-  {
-    ev_timer_stop (EV_A_ w);
-
-    /* now it's one second after the most recent passwd change */
-  }
-
-  static void
-  stat_cb (EV_P_ ev_stat *w, int revents)
-  {
-    /* reset the one-second timer */
-    ev_timer_again (EV_A_ &timer);
-  }
-
-  ...
-  ev_stat_init (&passwd, stat_cb, "/etc/passwd", 0.);
-  ev_stat_start (loop, &passwd);
-  ev_timer_init (&timer, timer_cb, 0., 1.01);
-
-
-=head2 C<ev_idle> - when you've got nothing better to do...
-
-Idle watchers trigger events when no other events of the same or higher
-priority are pending (prepare, check and other idle watchers do not
-count).
-
-That is, as long as your process is busy handling sockets or timeouts
-(or even signals, imagine) of the same or higher priority it will not be
-triggered. But when your process is idle (or only lower-priority watchers
-are pending), the idle watchers are being called once per event loop
-iteration - until stopped, that is, or your process receives more events
-and becomes busy again with higher priority stuff.
-
-The most noteworthy effect is that as long as any idle watchers are
-active, the process will not block when waiting for new events.
-
-Apart from keeping your process non-blocking (which is a useful
-effect on its own sometimes), idle watchers are a good place to do
-"pseudo-background processing", or delay processing stuff to after the
-event loop has handled all outstanding events.
-
-=head3 Watcher-Specific Functions and Data Members
-
-=over 4
-
-=item ev_idle_init (ev_signal *, callback)
-
-Initialises and configures the idle watcher - it has no parameters of any
-kind. There is a C<ev_idle_set> macro, but using it is utterly pointless,
-believe me.
-
-=back
-
-=head3 Examples
-
-Example: Dynamically allocate an C<ev_idle> watcher, start it, and in the
-callback, free it. Also, use no error checking, as usual.
-
-  static void
-  idle_cb (struct ev_loop *loop, struct ev_idle *w, int revents)
-  {
-    free (w);
-    // now do something you wanted to do when the program has
-    // no longer anything immediate to do.
-  }
-
-  struct ev_idle *idle_watcher = malloc (sizeof (struct ev_idle));
-  ev_idle_init (idle_watcher, idle_cb);
-  ev_idle_start (loop, idle_cb);
-
-
-=head2 C<ev_prepare> and C<ev_check> - customise your event loop!
-
-Prepare and check watchers are usually (but not always) used in tandem:
-prepare watchers get invoked before the process blocks and check watchers
-afterwards.
-
-You I<must not> call C<ev_loop> or similar functions that enter
-the current event loop from either C<ev_prepare> or C<ev_check>
-watchers. Other loops than the current one are fine, however. The
-rationale behind this is that you do not need to check for recursion in
-those watchers, i.e. the sequence will always be C<ev_prepare>, blocking,
-C<ev_check> so if you have one watcher of each kind they will always be
-called in pairs bracketing the blocking call.
-
-Their main purpose is to integrate other event mechanisms into libev and
-their use is somewhat advanced. This could be used, for example, to track
-variable changes, implement your own watchers, integrate net-snmp or a
-coroutine library and lots more. They are also occasionally useful if
-you cache some data and want to flush it before blocking (for example,
-in X programs you might want to do an C<XFlush ()> in an C<ev_prepare>
-watcher).
-
-This is done by examining in each prepare call which file descriptors need
-to be watched by the other library, registering C<ev_io> watchers for
-them and starting an C<ev_timer> watcher for any timeouts (many libraries
-provide just this functionality). Then, in the check watcher you check for
-any events that occured (by checking the pending status of all watchers
-and stopping them) and call back into the library. The I/O and timer
-callbacks will never actually be called (but must be valid nevertheless,
-because you never know, you know?).
-
-As another example, the Perl Coro module uses these hooks to integrate
-coroutines into libev programs, by yielding to other active coroutines
-during each prepare and only letting the process block if no coroutines
-are ready to run (it's actually more complicated: it only runs coroutines
-with priority higher than or equal to the event loop and one coroutine
-of lower priority, but only once, using idle watchers to keep the event
-loop from blocking if lower-priority coroutines are active, thus mapping
-low-priority coroutines to idle/background tasks).
-
-It is recommended to give C<ev_check> watchers highest (C<EV_MAXPRI>)
-priority, to ensure that they are being run before any other watchers
-after the poll. Also, C<ev_check> watchers (and C<ev_prepare> watchers,
-too) should not activate ("feed") events into libev. While libev fully
-supports this, they will be called before other C<ev_check> watchers
-did their job. As C<ev_check> watchers are often used to embed other
-(non-libev) event loops those other event loops might be in an unusable
-state until their C<ev_check> watcher ran (always remind yourself to
-coexist peacefully with others).
-
-=head3 Watcher-Specific Functions and Data Members
-
-=over 4
-
-=item ev_prepare_init (ev_prepare *, callback)
-
-=item ev_check_init (ev_check *, callback)
-
-Initialises and configures the prepare or check watcher - they have no
-parameters of any kind. There are C<ev_prepare_set> and C<ev_check_set>
-macros, but using them is utterly, utterly and completely pointless.
-
-=back
-
-=head3 Examples
-
-There are a number of principal ways to embed other event loops or modules
-into libev. Here are some ideas on how to include libadns into libev
-(there is a Perl module named C<EV::ADNS> that does this, which you could
-use for an actually working example. Another Perl module named C<EV::Glib>
-embeds a Glib main context into libev, and finally, C<Glib::EV> embeds EV
-into the Glib event loop).
-
-Method 1: Add IO watchers and a timeout watcher in a prepare handler,
-and in a check watcher, destroy them and call into libadns. What follows
-is pseudo-code only of course. This requires you to either use a low
-priority for the check watcher or use C<ev_clear_pending> explicitly, as
-the callbacks for the IO/timeout watchers might not have been called yet.
-
-  static ev_io iow [nfd];
-  static ev_timer tw;
-
-  static void
-  io_cb (ev_loop *loop, ev_io *w, int revents)
-  {
-  }
-
-  // create io watchers for each fd and a timer before blocking
-  static void
-  adns_prepare_cb (ev_loop *loop, ev_prepare *w, int revents)
-  {
-    int timeout = 3600000;
-    struct pollfd fds [nfd];
-    // actual code will need to loop here and realloc etc.
-    adns_beforepoll (ads, fds, &nfd, &timeout, timeval_from (ev_time ()));
-
-    /* the callback is illegal, but won't be called as we stop during check */
-    ev_timer_init (&tw, 0, timeout * 1e-3);
-    ev_timer_start (loop, &tw);
-
-    // create one ev_io per pollfd
-    for (int i = 0; i < nfd; ++i)
-      {
-        ev_io_init (iow + i, io_cb, fds [i].fd,
-          ((fds [i].events & POLLIN ? EV_READ : 0)
-           | (fds [i].events & POLLOUT ? EV_WRITE : 0)));
-
-        fds [i].revents = 0;
-        ev_io_start (loop, iow + i);
-      }
-  }
-
-  // stop all watchers after blocking
-  static void
-  adns_check_cb (ev_loop *loop, ev_check *w, int revents)
-  {
-    ev_timer_stop (loop, &tw);
-
-    for (int i = 0; i < nfd; ++i)
-      {
-        // set the relevant poll flags
-        // could also call adns_processreadable etc. here
-        struct pollfd *fd = fds + i;
-        int revents = ev_clear_pending (iow + i);
-        if (revents & EV_READ ) fd->revents |= fd->events & POLLIN;
-        if (revents & EV_WRITE) fd->revents |= fd->events & POLLOUT;
-
-        // now stop the watcher
-        ev_io_stop (loop, iow + i);
-      }
-
-    adns_afterpoll (adns, fds, nfd, timeval_from (ev_now (loop));
-  }
-
-Method 2: This would be just like method 1, but you run C<adns_afterpoll>
-in the prepare watcher and would dispose of the check watcher.
-
-Method 3: If the module to be embedded supports explicit event
-notification (adns does), you can also make use of the actual watcher
-callbacks, and only destroy/create the watchers in the prepare watcher.
-
-  static void
-  timer_cb (EV_P_ ev_timer *w, int revents)
-  {
-    adns_state ads = (adns_state)w->data;
-    update_now (EV_A);
-
-    adns_processtimeouts (ads, &tv_now);
-  }
-
-  static void
-  io_cb (EV_P_ ev_io *w, int revents)
-  {
-    adns_state ads = (adns_state)w->data;
-    update_now (EV_A);
-
-    if (revents & EV_READ ) adns_processreadable  (ads, w->fd, &tv_now);
-    if (revents & EV_WRITE) adns_processwriteable (ads, w->fd, &tv_now);
-  }
-
-  // do not ever call adns_afterpoll
-
-Method 4: Do not use a prepare or check watcher because the module you
-want to embed is too inflexible to support it. Instead, youc na override
-their poll function.  The drawback with this solution is that the main
-loop is now no longer controllable by EV. The C<Glib::EV> module does
-this.
-
-  static gint
-  event_poll_func (GPollFD *fds, guint nfds, gint timeout)
-  {
-    int got_events = 0;
-
-    for (n = 0; n < nfds; ++n)
-      // create/start io watcher that sets the relevant bits in fds[n] and increment got_events
-
-    if (timeout >= 0)
-      // create/start timer
-
-    // poll
-    ev_loop (EV_A_ 0);
-
-    // stop timer again
-    if (timeout >= 0)
-      ev_timer_stop (EV_A_ &to);
-
-    // stop io watchers again - their callbacks should have set
-    for (n = 0; n < nfds; ++n)
-      ev_io_stop (EV_A_ iow [n]);
-
-    return got_events;
-  }
-
-
-=head2 C<ev_embed> - when one backend isn't enough...
-
-This is a rather advanced watcher type that lets you embed one event loop
-into another (currently only C<ev_io> events are supported in the embedded
-loop, other types of watchers might be handled in a delayed or incorrect
-fashion and must not be used).
-
-There are primarily two reasons you would want that: work around bugs and
-prioritise I/O.
-
-As an example for a bug workaround, the kqueue backend might only support
-sockets on some platform, so it is unusable as generic backend, but you
-still want to make use of it because you have many sockets and it scales
-so nicely. In this case, you would create a kqueue-based loop and embed it
-into your default loop (which might use e.g. poll). Overall operation will
-be a bit slower because first libev has to poll and then call kevent, but
-at least you can use both at what they are best.
-
-As for prioritising I/O: rarely you have the case where some fds have
-to be watched and handled very quickly (with low latency), and even
-priorities and idle watchers might have too much overhead. In this case
-you would put all the high priority stuff in one loop and all the rest in
-a second one, and embed the second one in the first.
-
-As long as the watcher is active, the callback will be invoked every time
-there might be events pending in the embedded loop. The callback must then
-call C<ev_embed_sweep (mainloop, watcher)> to make a single sweep and invoke
-their callbacks (you could also start an idle watcher to give the embedded
-loop strictly lower priority for example). You can also set the callback
-to C<0>, in which case the embed watcher will automatically execute the
-embedded loop sweep.
-
-As long as the watcher is started it will automatically handle events. The
-callback will be invoked whenever some events have been handled. You can
-set the callback to C<0> to avoid having to specify one if you are not
-interested in that.
-
-Also, there have not currently been made special provisions for forking:
-when you fork, you not only have to call C<ev_loop_fork> on both loops,
-but you will also have to stop and restart any C<ev_embed> watchers
-yourself.
-
-Unfortunately, not all backends are embeddable, only the ones returned by
-C<ev_embeddable_backends> are, which, unfortunately, does not include any
-portable one.
-
-So when you want to use this feature you will always have to be prepared
-that you cannot get an embeddable loop. The recommended way to get around
-this is to have a separate variables for your embeddable loop, try to
-create it, and if that fails, use the normal loop for everything.
-
-=head3 Watcher-Specific Functions and Data Members
-
-=over 4
-
-=item ev_embed_init (ev_embed *, callback, struct ev_loop *embedded_loop)
-
-=item ev_embed_set (ev_embed *, callback, struct ev_loop *embedded_loop)
-
-Configures the watcher to embed the given loop, which must be
-embeddable. If the callback is C<0>, then C<ev_embed_sweep> will be
-invoked automatically, otherwise it is the responsibility of the callback
-to invoke it (it will continue to be called until the sweep has been done,
-if you do not want thta, you need to temporarily stop the embed watcher).
-
-=item ev_embed_sweep (loop, ev_embed *)
-
-Make a single, non-blocking sweep over the embedded loop. This works
-similarly to C<ev_loop (embedded_loop, EVLOOP_NONBLOCK)>, but in the most
-apropriate way for embedded loops.
-
-=item struct ev_loop *other [read-only]
-
-The embedded event loop.
-
-=back
-
-=head3 Examples
-
-Example: Try to get an embeddable event loop and embed it into the default
-event loop. If that is not possible, use the default loop. The default
-loop is stored in C<loop_hi>, while the mebeddable loop is stored in
-C<loop_lo> (which is C<loop_hi> in the acse no embeddable loop can be
-used).
-
-  struct ev_loop *loop_hi = ev_default_init (0);
-  struct ev_loop *loop_lo = 0;
-  struct ev_embed embed;
-  
-  // see if there is a chance of getting one that works
-  // (remember that a flags value of 0 means autodetection)
-  loop_lo = ev_embeddable_backends () & ev_recommended_backends ()
-    ? ev_loop_new (ev_embeddable_backends () & ev_recommended_backends ())
-    : 0;
-
-  // if we got one, then embed it, otherwise default to loop_hi
-  if (loop_lo)
-    {
-      ev_embed_init (&embed, 0, loop_lo);
-      ev_embed_start (loop_hi, &embed);
-    }
-  else
-    loop_lo = loop_hi;
-
-Example: Check if kqueue is available but not recommended and create
-a kqueue backend for use with sockets (which usually work with any
-kqueue implementation). Store the kqueue/socket-only event loop in
-C<loop_socket>. (One might optionally use C<EVFLAG_NOENV>, too).
-
-  struct ev_loop *loop = ev_default_init (0);
-  struct ev_loop *loop_socket = 0;
-  struct ev_embed embed;
-  
-  if (ev_supported_backends () & ~ev_recommended_backends () & EVBACKEND_KQUEUE)
-    if ((loop_socket = ev_loop_new (EVBACKEND_KQUEUE))
-      {
-        ev_embed_init (&embed, 0, loop_socket);
-        ev_embed_start (loop, &embed);
-      }
-
-  if (!loop_socket)
-    loop_socket = loop;
-
-  // now use loop_socket for all sockets, and loop for everything else
-
-
-=head2 C<ev_fork> - the audacity to resume the event loop after a fork
-
-Fork watchers are called when a C<fork ()> was detected (usually because
-whoever is a good citizen cared to tell libev about it by calling
-C<ev_default_fork> or C<ev_loop_fork>). The invocation is done before the
-event loop blocks next and before C<ev_check> watchers are being called,
-and only in the child after the fork. If whoever good citizen calling
-C<ev_default_fork> cheats and calls it in the wrong process, the fork
-handlers will be invoked, too, of course.
-
-=head3 Watcher-Specific Functions and Data Members
-
-=over 4
-
-=item ev_fork_init (ev_signal *, callback)
-
-Initialises and configures the fork watcher - it has no parameters of any
-kind. There is a C<ev_fork_set> macro, but using it is utterly pointless,
-believe me.
-
-=back
-
-
-=head2 C<ev_async> - how to wake up another event loop
-
-In general, you cannot use an C<ev_loop> from multiple threads or other
-asynchronous sources such as signal handlers (as opposed to multiple event
-loops - those are of course safe to use in different threads).
-
-Sometimes, however, you need to wake up another event loop you do not
-control, for example because it belongs to another thread. This is what
-C<ev_async> watchers do: as long as the C<ev_async> watcher is active, you
-can signal it by calling C<ev_async_send>, which is thread- and signal
-safe.
-
-This functionality is very similar to C<ev_signal> watchers, as signals,
-too, are asynchronous in nature, and signals, too, will be compressed
-(i.e. the number of callback invocations may be less than the number of
-C<ev_async_sent> calls).
-
-Unlike C<ev_signal> watchers, C<ev_async> works with any event loop, not
-just the default loop.
-
-=head3 Queueing
-
-C<ev_async> does not support queueing of data in any way. The reason
-is that the author does not know of a simple (or any) algorithm for a
-multiple-writer-single-reader queue that works in all cases and doesn't
-need elaborate support such as pthreads.
-
-That means that if you want to queue data, you have to provide your own
-queue. But at least I can tell you would implement locking around your
-queue:
-
-=over 4
-
-=item queueing from a signal handler context
-
-To implement race-free queueing, you simply add to the queue in the signal
-handler but you block the signal handler in the watcher callback. Here is an example that does that for
-some fictitiuous SIGUSR1 handler:
-
-   static ev_async mysig;
-
-   static void
-   sigusr1_handler (void)
-   {
-     sometype data;
-
-     // no locking etc.
-     queue_put (data);
-     ev_async_send (EV_DEFAULT_ &mysig);
-   }
-
-   static void
-   mysig_cb (EV_P_ ev_async *w, int revents)
-   {
-     sometype data;
-     sigset_t block, prev;
-
-     sigemptyset (&block);
-     sigaddset (&block, SIGUSR1);
-     sigprocmask (SIG_BLOCK, &block, &prev);
-
-     while (queue_get (&data))
-       process (data);
-
-     if (sigismember (&prev, SIGUSR1)
-       sigprocmask (SIG_UNBLOCK, &block, 0);
-   }
-
-(Note: pthreads in theory requires you to use C<pthread_setmask>
-instead of C<sigprocmask> when you use threads, but libev doesn't do it
-either...).
-
-=item queueing from a thread context
-
-The strategy for threads is different, as you cannot (easily) block
-threads but you can easily preempt them, so to queue safely you need to
-employ a traditional mutex lock, such as in this pthread example:
-
-   static ev_async mysig;
-   static pthread_mutex_t mymutex = PTHREAD_MUTEX_INITIALIZER;
-
-   static void
-   otherthread (void)
-   {
-     // only need to lock the actual queueing operation
-     pthread_mutex_lock (&mymutex);
-     queue_put (data);
-     pthread_mutex_unlock (&mymutex);
-
-     ev_async_send (EV_DEFAULT_ &mysig);
-   }
-
-   static void
-   mysig_cb (EV_P_ ev_async *w, int revents)
-   {
-     pthread_mutex_lock (&mymutex);
-
-     while (queue_get (&data))
-       process (data);
-
-     pthread_mutex_unlock (&mymutex);
-   }
-
-=back
-
-
-=head3 Watcher-Specific Functions and Data Members
-
-=over 4
-
-=item ev_async_init (ev_async *, callback)
-
-Initialises and configures the async watcher - it has no parameters of any
-kind. There is a C<ev_asynd_set> macro, but using it is utterly pointless,
-believe me.
-
-=item ev_async_send (loop, ev_async *)
-
-Sends/signals/activates the given C<ev_async> watcher, that is, feeds
-an C<EV_ASYNC> event on the watcher into the event loop. Unlike
-C<ev_feed_event>, this call is safe to do in other threads, signal or
-similar contexts (see the dicusssion of C<EV_ATOMIC_T> in the embedding
-section below on what exactly this means).
-
-This call incurs the overhead of a syscall only once per loop iteration,
-so while the overhead might be noticable, it doesn't apply to repeated
-calls to C<ev_async_send>.
-
-=item bool = ev_async_pending (ev_async *)
-
-Returns a non-zero value when C<ev_async_send> has been called on the
-watcher but the event has not yet been processed (or even noted) by the
-event loop.
-
-C<ev_async_send> sets a flag in the watcher and wakes up the loop. When
-the loop iterates next and checks for the watcher to have become active,
-it will reset the flag again. C<ev_async_pending> can be used to very
-quickly check wether invoking the loop might be a good idea.
-
-Not that this does I<not> check wether the watcher itself is pending, only
-wether it has been requested to make this watcher pending.
-
-=back
-
-
-=head1 OTHER FUNCTIONS
-
-There are some other functions of possible interest. Described. Here. Now.
-
-=over 4
-
-=item ev_once (loop, int fd, int events, ev_tstamp timeout, callback)
-
-This function combines a simple timer and an I/O watcher, calls your
-callback on whichever event happens first and automatically stop both
-watchers. This is useful if you want to wait for a single event on an fd
-or timeout without having to allocate/configure/start/stop/free one or
-more watchers yourself.
-
-If C<fd> is less than 0, then no I/O watcher will be started and events
-is being ignored. Otherwise, an C<ev_io> watcher for the given C<fd> and
-C<events> set will be craeted and started.
-
-If C<timeout> is less than 0, then no timeout watcher will be
-started. Otherwise an C<ev_timer> watcher with after = C<timeout> (and
-repeat = 0) will be started. While C<0> is a valid timeout, it is of
-dubious value.
-
-The callback has the type C<void (*cb)(int revents, void *arg)> and gets
-passed an C<revents> set like normal event callbacks (a combination of
-C<EV_ERROR>, C<EV_READ>, C<EV_WRITE> or C<EV_TIMEOUT>) and the C<arg>
-value passed to C<ev_once>:
-
-  static void stdin_ready (int revents, void *arg)
-  {
-    if (revents & EV_TIMEOUT)
-      /* doh, nothing entered */;
-    else if (revents & EV_READ)
-      /* stdin might have data for us, joy! */;
-  }
-
-  ev_once (STDIN_FILENO, EV_READ, 10., stdin_ready, 0);
-
-=item ev_feed_event (ev_loop *, watcher *, int revents)
-
-Feeds the given event set into the event loop, as if the specified event
-had happened for the specified watcher (which must be a pointer to an
-initialised but not necessarily started event watcher).
-
-=item ev_feed_fd_event (ev_loop *, int fd, int revents)
-
-Feed an event on the given fd, as if a file descriptor backend detected
-the given events it.
-
-=item ev_feed_signal_event (ev_loop *loop, int signum)
-
-Feed an event as if the given signal occured (C<loop> must be the default
-loop!).
-
-=back
-
-
-=head1 LIBEVENT EMULATION
-
-Libev offers a compatibility emulation layer for libevent. It cannot
-emulate the internals of libevent, so here are some usage hints:
-
-=over 4
-
-=item * Use it by including <event.h>, as usual.
-
-=item * The following members are fully supported: ev_base, ev_callback,
-ev_arg, ev_fd, ev_res, ev_events.
-
-=item * Avoid using ev_flags and the EVLIST_*-macros, while it is
-maintained by libev, it does not work exactly the same way as in libevent (consider
-it a private API).
-
-=item * Priorities are not currently supported. Initialising priorities
-will fail and all watchers will have the same priority, even though there
-is an ev_pri field.
-
-=item * In libevent, the last base created gets the signals, in libev, the
-first base created (== the default loop) gets the signals.
-
-=item * Other members are not supported.
-
-=item * The libev emulation is I<not> ABI compatible to libevent, you need
-to use the libev header file and library.
-
-=back
-
-=head1 C++ SUPPORT
-
-Libev comes with some simplistic wrapper classes for C++ that mainly allow
-you to use some convinience methods to start/stop watchers and also change
-the callback model to a model using method callbacks on objects.
-
-To use it,
-   
-  #include <ev++.h>
-
-This automatically includes F<ev.h> and puts all of its definitions (many
-of them macros) into the global namespace. All C++ specific things are
-put into the C<ev> namespace. It should support all the same embedding
-options as F<ev.h>, most notably C<EV_MULTIPLICITY>.
-
-Care has been taken to keep the overhead low. The only data member the C++
-classes add (compared to plain C-style watchers) is the event loop pointer
-that the watcher is associated with (or no additional members at all if
-you disable C<EV_MULTIPLICITY> when embedding libev).
-
-Currently, functions, and static and non-static member functions can be
-used as callbacks. Other types should be easy to add as long as they only
-need one additional pointer for context. If you need support for other
-types of functors please contact the author (preferably after implementing
-it).
-
-Here is a list of things available in the C<ev> namespace:
-
-=over 4
-
-=item C<ev::READ>, C<ev::WRITE> etc.
-
-These are just enum values with the same values as the C<EV_READ> etc.
-macros from F<ev.h>.
-
-=item C<ev::tstamp>, C<ev::now>
-
-Aliases to the same types/functions as with the C<ev_> prefix.
-
-=item C<ev::io>, C<ev::timer>, C<ev::periodic>, C<ev::idle>, C<ev::sig> etc.
-
-For each C<ev_TYPE> watcher in F<ev.h> there is a corresponding class of
-the same name in the C<ev> namespace, with the exception of C<ev_signal>
-which is called C<ev::sig> to avoid clashes with the C<signal> macro
-defines by many implementations.
-
-All of those classes have these methods:
-
-=over 4
-
-=item ev::TYPE::TYPE ()
-
-=item ev::TYPE::TYPE (struct ev_loop *)
-
-=item ev::TYPE::~TYPE
-
-The constructor (optionally) takes an event loop to associate the watcher
-with. If it is omitted, it will use C<EV_DEFAULT>.
-
-The constructor calls C<ev_init> for you, which means you have to call the
-C<set> method before starting it.
-
-It will not set a callback, however: You have to call the templated C<set>
-method to set a callback before you can start the watcher.
-
-(The reason why you have to use a method is a limitation in C++ which does
-not allow explicit template arguments for constructors).
-
-The destructor automatically stops the watcher if it is active.
-
-=item w->set<class, &class::method> (object *)
-
-This method sets the callback method to call. The method has to have a
-signature of C<void (*)(ev_TYPE &, int)>, it receives the watcher as
-first argument and the C<revents> as second. The object must be given as
-parameter and is stored in the C<data> member of the watcher.
-
-This method synthesizes efficient thunking code to call your method from
-the C callback that libev requires. If your compiler can inline your
-callback (i.e. it is visible to it at the place of the C<set> call and
-your compiler is good :), then the method will be fully inlined into the
-thunking function, making it as fast as a direct C callback.
-
-Example: simple class declaration and watcher initialisation
-
-  struct myclass
-  {
-    void io_cb (ev::io &w, int revents) { }
-  }
-
-  myclass obj;
-  ev::io iow;
-  iow.set <myclass, &myclass::io_cb> (&obj);
-
-=item w->set<function> (void *data = 0)
-
-Also sets a callback, but uses a static method or plain function as
-callback. The optional C<data> argument will be stored in the watcher's
-C<data> member and is free for you to use.
-
-The prototype of the C<function> must be C<void (*)(ev::TYPE &w, int)>.
-
-See the method-C<set> above for more details.
-
-Example:
-
-  static void io_cb (ev::io &w, int revents) { }
-  iow.set <io_cb> ();
-
-=item w->set (struct ev_loop *)
-
-Associates a different C<struct ev_loop> with this watcher. You can only
-do this when the watcher is inactive (and not pending either).
-
-=item w->set ([args])
-
-Basically the same as C<ev_TYPE_set>, with the same args. Must be
-called at least once. Unlike the C counterpart, an active watcher gets
-automatically stopped and restarted when reconfiguring it with this
-method.
-
-=item w->start ()
-
-Starts the watcher. Note that there is no C<loop> argument, as the
-constructor already stores the event loop.
-
-=item w->stop ()
-
-Stops the watcher if it is active. Again, no C<loop> argument.
-
-=item w->again () (C<ev::timer>, C<ev::periodic> only)
-
-For C<ev::timer> and C<ev::periodic>, this invokes the corresponding
-C<ev_TYPE_again> function.
-
-=item w->sweep () (C<ev::embed> only)
-
-Invokes C<ev_embed_sweep>.
-
-=item w->update () (C<ev::stat> only)
-
-Invokes C<ev_stat_stat>.
-
-=back
-
-=back
-
-Example: Define a class with an IO and idle watcher, start one of them in
-the constructor.
-
-  class myclass
-  {
-    ev::io   io;  void io_cb   (ev::io   &w, int revents);
-    ev:idle idle  void idle_cb (ev::idle &w, int revents);
-
-    myclass (int fd)
-    {
-      io  .set <myclass, &myclass::io_cb  > (this);
-      idle.set <myclass, &myclass::idle_cb> (this);
-
-      io.start (fd, ev::READ);
-    }
-  };
-
-
-=head1 OTHER LANGUAGE BINDINGS
-
-Libev does not offer other language bindings itself, but bindings for a
-numbe rof languages exist in the form of third-party packages. If you know
-any interesting language binding in addition to the ones listed here, drop
-me a note.
-
-=over 4
-
-=item Perl
-
-The EV module implements the full libev API and is actually used to test
-libev. EV is developed together with libev. Apart from the EV core module,
-there are additional modules that implement libev-compatible interfaces
-to C<libadns> (C<EV::ADNS>), C<Net::SNMP> (C<Net::SNMP::EV>) and the
-C<libglib> event core (C<Glib::EV> and C<EV::Glib>).
-
-It can be found and installed via CPAN, its homepage is found at
-L<http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/EV>.
-
-=item Ruby
-
-Tony Arcieri has written a ruby extension that offers access to a subset
-of the libev API and adds filehandle abstractions, asynchronous DNS and
-more on top of it. It can be found via gem servers. Its homepage is at
-L<http://rev.rubyforge.org/>.
-
-=item D
-
-Leandro Lucarella has written a D language binding (F<ev.d>) for libev, to
-be found at L<http://git.llucax.com.ar/?p=software/ev.d.git;a=summary>.
-
-=back
-
-
-=head1 MACRO MAGIC
-
-Libev can be compiled with a variety of options, the most fundamantal
-of which is C<EV_MULTIPLICITY>. This option determines whether (most)
-functions and callbacks have an initial C<struct ev_loop *> argument.
-
-To make it easier to write programs that cope with either variant, the
-following macros are defined:
-
-=over 4
-
-=item C<EV_A>, C<EV_A_>
-
-This provides the loop I<argument> for functions, if one is required ("ev
-loop argument"). The C<EV_A> form is used when this is the sole argument,
-C<EV_A_> is used when other arguments are following. Example:
-
-  ev_unref (EV_A);
-  ev_timer_add (EV_A_ watcher);
-  ev_loop (EV_A_ 0);
-
-It assumes the variable C<loop> of type C<struct ev_loop *> is in scope,
-which is often provided by the following macro.
-
-=item C<EV_P>, C<EV_P_>
-
-This provides the loop I<parameter> for functions, if one is required ("ev
-loop parameter"). The C<EV_P> form is used when this is the sole parameter,
-C<EV_P_> is used when other parameters are following. Example:
-
-  // this is how ev_unref is being declared
-  static void ev_unref (EV_P);
-
-  // this is how you can declare your typical callback
-  static void cb (EV_P_ ev_timer *w, int revents)
-
-It declares a parameter C<loop> of type C<struct ev_loop *>, quite
-suitable for use with C<EV_A>.
-
-=item C<EV_DEFAULT>, C<EV_DEFAULT_>
-
-Similar to the other two macros, this gives you the value of the default
-loop, if multiple loops are supported ("ev loop default").
-
-=item C<EV_DEFAULT_UC>, C<EV_DEFAULT_UC_>
-
-Usage identical to C<EV_DEFAULT> and C<EV_DEFAULT_>, but requires that the
-default loop has been initialised (C<UC> == unchecked). Their behaviour
-is undefined when the default loop has not been initialised by a previous
-execution of C<EV_DEFAULT>, C<EV_DEFAULT_> or C<ev_default_init (...)>.
-
-It is often prudent to use C<EV_DEFAULT> when initialising the first
-watcher in a function but use C<EV_DEFAULT_UC> afterwards.
-
-=back
-
-Example: Declare and initialise a check watcher, utilising the above
-macros so it will work regardless of whether multiple loops are supported
-or not.
-
-  static void
-  check_cb (EV_P_ ev_timer *w, int revents)
-  {
-    ev_check_stop (EV_A_ w);
-  }
-
-  ev_check check;
-  ev_check_init (&check, check_cb);
-  ev_check_start (EV_DEFAULT_ &check);
-  ev_loop (EV_DEFAULT_ 0);
-
-=head1 EMBEDDING
-
-Libev can (and often is) directly embedded into host
-applications. Examples of applications that embed it include the Deliantra
-Game Server, the EV perl module, the GNU Virtual Private Ethernet (gvpe)
-and rxvt-unicode.
-
-The goal is to enable you to just copy the necessary files into your
-source directory without having to change even a single line in them, so
-you can easily upgrade by simply copying (or having a checked-out copy of
-libev somewhere in your source tree).
-
-=head2 FILESETS
-
-Depending on what features you need you need to include one or more sets of files
-in your app.
-
-=head3 CORE EVENT LOOP
-
-To include only the libev core (all the C<ev_*> functions), with manual
-configuration (no autoconf):
-
-  #define EV_STANDALONE 1
-  #include "ev.c"
-
-This will automatically include F<ev.h>, too, and should be done in a
-single C source file only to provide the function implementations. To use
-it, do the same for F<ev.h> in all files wishing to use this API (best
-done by writing a wrapper around F<ev.h> that you can include instead and
-where you can put other configuration options):
-
-  #define EV_STANDALONE 1
-  #include "ev.h"
-
-Both header files and implementation files can be compiled with a C++
-compiler (at least, thats a stated goal, and breakage will be treated
-as a bug).
-
-You need the following files in your source tree, or in a directory
-in your include path (e.g. in libev/ when using -Ilibev):
-
-  ev.h
-  ev.c
-  ev_vars.h
-  ev_wrap.h
-
-  ev_win32.c      required on win32 platforms only
-
-  ev_select.c     only when select backend is enabled (which is enabled by default)
-  ev_poll.c       only when poll backend is enabled (disabled by default)
-  ev_epoll.c      only when the epoll backend is enabled (disabled by default)
-  ev_kqueue.c     only when the kqueue backend is enabled (disabled by default)
-  ev_port.c       only when the solaris port backend is enabled (disabled by default)
-
-F<ev.c> includes the backend files directly when enabled, so you only need
-to compile this single file.
-
-=head3 LIBEVENT COMPATIBILITY API
-
-To include the libevent compatibility API, also include:
-
-  #include "event.c"
-
-in the file including F<ev.c>, and:
-
-  #include "event.h"
-
-in the files that want to use the libevent API. This also includes F<ev.h>.
-
-You need the following additional files for this:
-
-  event.h
-  event.c
-
-=head3 AUTOCONF SUPPORT
-
-Instead of using C<EV_STANDALONE=1> and providing your config in
-whatever way you want, you can also C<m4_include([libev.m4])> in your
-F<configure.ac> and leave C<EV_STANDALONE> undefined. F<ev.c> will then
-include F<config.h> and configure itself accordingly.
-
-For this of course you need the m4 file:
-
-  libev.m4
-
-=head2 PREPROCESSOR SYMBOLS/MACROS
-
-Libev can be configured via a variety of preprocessor symbols you have to
-define before including any of its files. The default in the absense of
-autoconf is noted for every option.
-
-=over 4
-
-=item EV_STANDALONE
-
-Must always be C<1> if you do not use autoconf configuration, which
-keeps libev from including F<config.h>, and it also defines dummy
-implementations for some libevent functions (such as logging, which is not
-supported). It will also not define any of the structs usually found in
-F<event.h> that are not directly supported by the libev core alone.
-
-=item EV_USE_MONOTONIC
-
-If defined to be C<1>, libev will try to detect the availability of the
-monotonic clock option at both compiletime and runtime. Otherwise no use
-of the monotonic clock option will be attempted. If you enable this, you
-usually have to link against librt or something similar. Enabling it when
-the functionality isn't available is safe, though, although you have
-to make sure you link against any libraries where the C<clock_gettime>
-function is hiding in (often F<-lrt>).
-
-=item EV_USE_REALTIME
-
-If defined to be C<1>, libev will try to detect the availability of the
-realtime clock option at compiletime (and assume its availability at
-runtime if successful). Otherwise no use of the realtime clock option will
-be attempted. This effectively replaces C<gettimeofday> by C<clock_get
-(CLOCK_REALTIME, ...)> and will not normally affect correctness. See the
-note about libraries in the description of C<EV_USE_MONOTONIC>, though.
-
-=item EV_USE_NANOSLEEP
-
-If defined to be C<1>, libev will assume that C<nanosleep ()> is available
-and will use it for delays. Otherwise it will use C<select ()>.
-
-=item EV_USE_EVENTFD
-
-If defined to be C<1>, then libev will assume that C<eventfd ()> is
-available and will probe for kernel support at runtime. This will improve
-C<ev_signal> and C<ev_async> performance and reduce resource consumption.
-If undefined, it will be enabled if the headers indicate GNU/Linux + Glibc
-2.7 or newer, otherwise disabled.
-
-=item EV_USE_SELECT
-
-If undefined or defined to be C<1>, libev will compile in support for the
-C<select>(2) backend. No attempt at autodetection will be done: if no
-other method takes over, select will be it. Otherwise the select backend
-will not be compiled in.
-
-=item EV_SELECT_USE_FD_SET
-
-If defined to C<1>, then the select backend will use the system C<fd_set>
-structure. This is useful if libev doesn't compile due to a missing
-C<NFDBITS> or C<fd_mask> definition or it misguesses the bitset layout on
-exotic systems. This usually limits the range of file descriptors to some
-low limit such as 1024 or might have other limitations (winsocket only
-allows 64 sockets). The C<FD_SETSIZE> macro, set before compilation, might
-influence the size of the C<fd_set> used.
-
-=item EV_SELECT_IS_WINSOCKET
-
-When defined to C<1>, the select backend will assume that
-select/socket/connect etc. don't understand file descriptors but
-wants osf handles on win32 (this is the case when the select to
-be used is the winsock select). This means that it will call
-C<_get_osfhandle> on the fd to convert it to an OS handle. Otherwise,
-it is assumed that all these functions actually work on fds, even
-on win32. Should not be defined on non-win32 platforms.
-
-=item EV_FD_TO_WIN32_HANDLE
-
-If C<EV_SELECT_IS_WINSOCKET> is enabled, then libev needs a way to map
-file descriptors to socket handles. When not defining this symbol (the
-default), then libev will call C<_get_osfhandle>, which is usually
-correct. In some cases, programs use their own file descriptor management,
-in which case they can provide this function to map fds to socket handles.
-
-=item EV_USE_POLL
-
-If defined to be C<1>, libev will compile in support for the C<poll>(2)
-backend. Otherwise it will be enabled on non-win32 platforms. It
-takes precedence over select.
-
-=item EV_USE_EPOLL
-
-If defined to be C<1>, libev will compile in support for the Linux
-C<epoll>(7) backend. Its availability will be detected at runtime,
-otherwise another method will be used as fallback. This is the preferred
-backend for GNU/Linux systems. If undefined, it will be enabled if the
-headers indicate GNU/Linux + Glibc 2.4 or newer, otherwise disabled.
-
-=item EV_USE_KQUEUE
-
-If defined to be C<1>, libev will compile in support for the BSD style
-C<kqueue>(2) backend. Its actual availability will be detected at runtime,
-otherwise another method will be used as fallback. This is the preferred
-backend for BSD and BSD-like systems, although on most BSDs kqueue only
-supports some types of fds correctly (the only platform we found that
-supports ptys for example was NetBSD), so kqueue might be compiled in, but
-not be used unless explicitly requested. The best way to use it is to find
-out whether kqueue supports your type of fd properly and use an embedded
-kqueue loop.
-
-=item EV_USE_PORT
-
-If defined to be C<1>, libev will compile in support for the Solaris
-10 port style backend. Its availability will be detected at runtime,
-otherwise another method will be used as fallback. This is the preferred
-backend for Solaris 10 systems.
-
-=item EV_USE_DEVPOLL
-
-reserved for future expansion, works like the USE symbols above.
-
-=item EV_USE_INOTIFY
-
-If defined to be C<1>, libev will compile in support for the Linux inotify
-interface to speed up C<ev_stat> watchers. Its actual availability will
-be detected at runtime. If undefined, it will be enabled if the headers
-indicate GNU/Linux + Glibc 2.4 or newer, otherwise disabled.
-
-=item EV_ATOMIC_T
-
-Libev requires an integer type (suitable for storing C<0> or C<1>) whose
-access is atomic with respect to other threads or signal contexts. No such
-type is easily found in the C language, so you can provide your own type
-that you know is safe for your purposes. It is used both for signal handler "locking"
-as well as for signal and thread safety in C<ev_async> watchers.
-
-In the absense of this define, libev will use C<sig_atomic_t volatile>
-(from F<signal.h>), which is usually good enough on most platforms.
-
-=item EV_H
-
-The name of the F<ev.h> header file used to include it. The default if
-undefined is C<"ev.h"> in F<event.h>, F<ev.c> and F<ev++.h>. This can be
-used to virtually rename the F<ev.h> header file in case of conflicts.
-
-=item EV_CONFIG_H
-
-If C<EV_STANDALONE> isn't C<1>, this variable can be used to override
-F<ev.c>'s idea of where to find the F<config.h> file, similarly to
-C<EV_H>, above.
-
-=item EV_EVENT_H
-
-Similarly to C<EV_H>, this macro can be used to override F<event.c>'s idea
-of how the F<event.h> header can be found, the default is C<"event.h">.
-
-=item EV_PROTOTYPES
-
-If defined to be C<0>, then F<ev.h> will not define any function
-prototypes, but still define all the structs and other symbols. This is
-occasionally useful if you want to provide your own wrapper functions
-around libev functions.
-
-=item EV_MULTIPLICITY
-
-If undefined or defined to C<1>, then all event-loop-specific functions
-will have the C<struct ev_loop *> as first argument, and you can create
-additional independent event loops. Otherwise there will be no support
-for multiple event loops and there is no first event loop pointer
-argument. Instead, all functions act on the single default loop.
-
-=item EV_MINPRI
-
-=item EV_MAXPRI
-
-The range of allowed priorities. C<EV_MINPRI> must be smaller or equal to
-C<EV_MAXPRI>, but otherwise there are no non-obvious limitations. You can
-provide for more priorities by overriding those symbols (usually defined
-to be C<-2> and C<2>, respectively).
-
-When doing priority-based operations, libev usually has to linearly search
-all the priorities, so having many of them (hundreds) uses a lot of space
-and time, so using the defaults of five priorities (-2 .. +2) is usually
-fine.
-
-If your embedding app does not need any priorities, defining these both to
-C<0> will save some memory and cpu.
-
-=item EV_PERIODIC_ENABLE
-
-If undefined or defined to be C<1>, then periodic timers are supported. If
-defined to be C<0>, then they are not. Disabling them saves a few kB of
-code.
-
-=item EV_IDLE_ENABLE
-
-If undefined or defined to be C<1>, then idle watchers are supported. If
-defined to be C<0>, then they are not. Disabling them saves a few kB of
-code.
-
-=item EV_EMBED_ENABLE
-
-If undefined or defined to be C<1>, then embed watchers are supported. If
-defined to be C<0>, then they are not.
-
-=item EV_STAT_ENABLE
-
-If undefined or defined to be C<1>, then stat watchers are supported. If
-defined to be C<0>, then they are not.
-
-=item EV_FORK_ENABLE
-
-If undefined or defined to be C<1>, then fork watchers are supported. If
-defined to be C<0>, then they are not.
-
-=item EV_ASYNC_ENABLE
-
-If undefined or defined to be C<1>, then async watchers are supported. If
-defined to be C<0>, then they are not.
-
-=item EV_MINIMAL
-
-If you need to shave off some kilobytes of code at the expense of some
-speed, define this symbol to C<1>. Currently only used for gcc to override
-some inlining decisions, saves roughly 30% codesize of amd64.
-
-=item EV_PID_HASHSIZE
-
-C<ev_child> watchers use a small hash table to distribute workload by
-pid. The default size is C<16> (or C<1> with C<EV_MINIMAL>), usually more
-than enough. If you need to manage thousands of children you might want to
-increase this value (I<must> be a power of two).
-
-=item EV_INOTIFY_HASHSIZE
-
-C<ev_stat> watchers use a small hash table to distribute workload by
-inotify watch id. The default size is C<16> (or C<1> with C<EV_MINIMAL>),
-usually more than enough. If you need to manage thousands of C<ev_stat>
-watchers you might want to increase this value (I<must> be a power of
-two).
-
-=item EV_COMMON
-
-By default, all watchers have a C<void *data> member. By redefining
-this macro to a something else you can include more and other types of
-members. You have to define it each time you include one of the files,
-though, and it must be identical each time.
-
-For example, the perl EV module uses something like this:
-
-  #define EV_COMMON                       \
-    SV *self; /* contains this struct */  \
-    SV *cb_sv, *fh /* note no trailing ";" */
-
-=item EV_CB_DECLARE (type)
-
-=item EV_CB_INVOKE (watcher, revents)
-
-=item ev_set_cb (ev, cb)
-
-Can be used to change the callback member declaration in each watcher,
-and the way callbacks are invoked and set. Must expand to a struct member
-definition and a statement, respectively. See the F<ev.h> header file for
-their default definitions. One possible use for overriding these is to
-avoid the C<struct ev_loop *> as first argument in all cases, or to use
-method calls instead of plain function calls in C++.
-
-=head2 EXPORTED API SYMBOLS
-
-If you need to re-export the API (e.g. via a dll) and you need a list of
-exported symbols, you can use the provided F<Symbol.*> files which list
-all public symbols, one per line:
-
-  Symbols.ev      for libev proper
-  Symbols.event   for the libevent emulation
-
-This can also be used to rename all public symbols to avoid clashes with
-multiple versions of libev linked together (which is obviously bad in
-itself, but sometimes it is inconvinient to avoid this).
-
-A sed command like this will create wrapper C<#define>'s that you need to
-include before including F<ev.h>:
-
-   <Symbols.ev sed -e "s/.*/#define & myprefix_&/" >wrap.h
-
-This would create a file F<wrap.h> which essentially looks like this:
-
-   #define ev_backend     myprefix_ev_backend
-   #define ev_check_start myprefix_ev_check_start
-   #define ev_check_stop  myprefix_ev_check_stop
-   ...
-
-=head2 EXAMPLES
-
-For a real-world example of a program the includes libev
-verbatim, you can have a look at the EV perl module
-(L<http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/EV.html>). It has the libev files in
-the F<libev/> subdirectory and includes them in the F<EV/EVAPI.h> (public
-interface) and F<EV.xs> (implementation) files. Only the F<EV.xs> file
-will be compiled. It is pretty complex because it provides its own header
-file.
-
-The usage in rxvt-unicode is simpler. It has a F<ev_cpp.h> header file
-that everybody includes and which overrides some configure choices:
-
-  #define EV_MINIMAL 1
-  #define EV_USE_POLL 0
-  #define EV_MULTIPLICITY 0
-  #define EV_PERIODIC_ENABLE 0
-  #define EV_STAT_ENABLE 0
-  #define EV_FORK_ENABLE 0
-  #define EV_CONFIG_H <config.h>
-  #define EV_MINPRI 0
-  #define EV_MAXPRI 0
-
-  #include "ev++.h"
-
-And a F<ev_cpp.C> implementation file that contains libev proper and is compiled:
-
-  #include "ev_cpp.h"
-  #include "ev.c"
-
-
-=head1 THREADS AND COROUTINES
-
-=head2 THREADS
-
-Libev itself is completely threadsafe, but it uses no locking. This
-means that you can use as many loops as you want in parallel, as long as
-only one thread ever calls into one libev function with the same loop
-parameter.
-
-Or put differently: calls with different loop parameters can be done in
-parallel from multiple threads, calls with the same loop parameter must be
-done serially (but can be done from different threads, as long as only one
-thread ever is inside a call at any point in time, e.g. by using a mutex
-per loop).
-
-If you want to know which design is best for your problem, then I cannot
-help you but by giving some generic advice:
-
-=over 4
-
-=item * most applications have a main thread: use the default libev loop
-in that thread, or create a seperate thread running only the default loop.
-
-This helps integrating other libraries or software modules that use libev
-themselves and don't care/know about threading.
-
-=item * one loop per thread is usually a good model.
-
-Doing this is almost never wrong, sometimes a better-performance model
-exists, but it is always a good start.
-
-=item * other models exist, such as the leader/follower pattern, where one
-loop is handed through multiple threads in a kind of round-robbin fashion.
-
-Chosing a model is hard - look around, learn, know that usually you cna do
-better than you currently do :-)
-
-=item * often you need to talk to some other thread which blocks in the
-event loop - C<ev_async> watchers can be used to wake them up from other
-threads safely (or from signal contexts...).
-
-=back
-
-=head2 COROUTINES
-
-Libev is much more accomodating to coroutines ("cooperative threads"):
-libev fully supports nesting calls to it's functions from different
-coroutines (e.g. you can call C<ev_loop> on the same loop from two
-different coroutines and switch freely between both coroutines running the
-loop, as long as you don't confuse yourself). The only exception is that
-you must not do this from C<ev_periodic> reschedule callbacks.
-
-Care has been invested into making sure that libev does not keep local
-state inside C<ev_loop>, and other calls do not usually allow coroutine
-switches.
-
-
-=head1 COMPLEXITIES
-
-In this section the complexities of (many of) the algorithms used inside
-libev will be explained. For complexity discussions about backends see the
-documentation for C<ev_default_init>.
-
-All of the following are about amortised time: If an array needs to be
-extended, libev needs to realloc and move the whole array, but this
-happens asymptotically never with higher number of elements, so O(1) might
-mean it might do a lengthy realloc operation in rare cases, but on average
-it is much faster and asymptotically approaches constant time.
-
-=over 4
-
-=item Starting and stopping timer/periodic watchers: O(log skipped_other_timers)
-
-This means that, when you have a watcher that triggers in one hour and
-there are 100 watchers that would trigger before that then inserting will
-have to skip roughly seven (C<ld 100>) of these watchers.
-
-=item Changing timer/periodic watchers (by autorepeat or calling again): O(log skipped_other_timers)
-
-That means that changing a timer costs less than removing/adding them
-as only the relative motion in the event queue has to be paid for.
-
-=item Starting io/check/prepare/idle/signal/child/fork/async watchers: O(1)
-
-These just add the watcher into an array or at the head of a list.
-
-=item Stopping check/prepare/idle/fork/async watchers: O(1)
-
-=item Stopping an io/signal/child watcher: O(number_of_watchers_for_this_(fd/signal/pid % EV_PID_HASHSIZE))
-
-These watchers are stored in lists then need to be walked to find the
-correct watcher to remove. The lists are usually short (you don't usually
-have many watchers waiting for the same fd or signal).
-
-=item Finding the next timer in each loop iteration: O(1)
-
-By virtue of using a binary heap, the next timer is always found at the
-beginning of the storage array.
-
-=item Each change on a file descriptor per loop iteration: O(number_of_watchers_for_this_fd)
-
-A change means an I/O watcher gets started or stopped, which requires
-libev to recalculate its status (and possibly tell the kernel, depending
-on backend and wether C<ev_io_set> was used).
-
-=item Activating one watcher (putting it into the pending state): O(1)
-
-=item Priority handling: O(number_of_priorities)
-
-Priorities are implemented by allocating some space for each
-priority. When doing priority-based operations, libev usually has to
-linearly search all the priorities, but starting/stopping and activating
-watchers becomes O(1) w.r.t. priority handling.
-
-=item Sending an ev_async: O(1)
-
-=item Processing ev_async_send: O(number_of_async_watchers)
-
-=item Processing signals: O(max_signal_number)
-
-Sending involves a syscall I<iff> there were no other C<ev_async_send>
-calls in the current loop iteration. Checking for async and signal events
-involves iterating over all running async watchers or all signal numbers.
-
-=back
-
-
-=head1 Win32 platform limitations and workarounds
-
-Win32 doesn't support any of the standards (e.g. POSIX) that libev
-requires, and its I/O model is fundamentally incompatible with the POSIX
-model. Libev still offers limited functionality on this platform in
-the form of the C<EVBACKEND_SELECT> backend, and only supports socket
-descriptors. This only applies when using Win32 natively, not when using
-e.g. cygwin.
-
-There is no supported compilation method available on windows except
-embedding it into other applications.
-
-Due to the many, low, and arbitrary limits on the win32 platform and the
-abysmal performance of winsockets, using a large number of sockets is not
-recommended (and not reasonable). If your program needs to use more than
-a hundred or so sockets, then likely it needs to use a totally different
-implementation for windows, as libev offers the POSIX model, which cannot
-be implemented efficiently on windows (microsoft monopoly games).
-
-=over 4
-
-=item The winsocket select function
-
-The winsocket C<select> function doesn't follow POSIX in that it requires
-socket I<handles> and not socket I<file descriptors>. This makes select
-very inefficient, and also requires a mapping from file descriptors
-to socket handles. See the discussion of the C<EV_SELECT_USE_FD_SET>,
-C<EV_SELECT_IS_WINSOCKET> and C<EV_FD_TO_WIN32_HANDLE> preprocessor
-symbols for more info.
-
-The configuration for a "naked" win32 using the microsoft runtime
-libraries and raw winsocket select is:
-
-  #define EV_USE_SELECT 1
-  #define EV_SELECT_IS_WINSOCKET 1   /* forces EV_SELECT_USE_FD_SET, too */
-
-Note that winsockets handling of fd sets is O(n), so you can easily get a
-complexity in the O(n²) range when using win32.
-
-=item Limited number of file descriptors
-
-Windows has numerous arbitrary (and low) limits on things. Early versions
-of winsocket's select only supported waiting for a max. of C<64> handles
-(probably owning to the fact that all windows kernels can only wait for
-C<64> things at the same time internally; microsoft recommends spawning a
-chain of threads and wait for 63 handles and the previous thread in each).
-
-Newer versions support more handles, but you need to define C<FD_SETSIZE>
-to some high number (e.g. C<2048>) before compiling the winsocket select
-call (which might be in libev or elsewhere, for example, perl does its own
-select emulation on windows).
-
-Another limit is the number of file descriptors in the microsoft runtime
-libraries, which by default is C<64> (there must be a hidden I<64> fetish
-or something like this inside microsoft). You can increase this by calling
-C<_setmaxstdio>, which can increase this limit to C<2048> (another
-arbitrary limit), but is broken in many versions of the microsoft runtime
-libraries.
-
-This might get you to about C<512> or C<2048> sockets (depending on
-windows version and/or the phase of the moon). To get more, you need to
-wrap all I/O functions and provide your own fd management, but the cost of
-calling select (O(n²)) will likely make this unworkable.
-
-=back
-
-
-=head1 AUTHOR
-
-Marc Lehmann <libev@schmorp.de>.
-