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data/src/vendor/libev/ev.pod

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+=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>
+
+   #include <stdio.h> // for puts
+
+   // 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_ 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_ 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://pod.tst.eu/http://cvs.schmorp.de/libev/ev.pod>.
+
+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<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 floating point value. Unlike the name
+component C<stamp> might indicate, it is also used for time differences
+throughout libev.
+
+=head1 ERROR HANDLING
+
+Libev knows three classes of errors: operating system errors, usage errors
+and internal errors (bugs).
+
+When libev catches an operating system error it cannot handle (for example
+a system call indicating a condition libev cannot fix), it calls the callback
+set via C<ev_set_syserr_cb>, which is supposed to fix the problem or
+abort. The default is to print a diagnostic message and to call C<abort
+()>.
+
+When libev detects a usage error such as a negative timer interval, then
+it will print a diagnostic message and abort (via the C<assert> mechanism,
+so C<NDEBUG> will disable this checking): these are programming errors in
+the libev caller and need to be fixed there.
+
+Libev also has a few internal error-checking C<assert>ions, and also has
+extensive consistency checking code. These do not trigger under normal
+circumstances, as they indicate either a bug in libev or worse.
+
+
+=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 sub-second-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 auto-detected 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)) [NOT REENTRANT]
+
+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)); [NOT REENTRANT]
+
+Set the callback function to call on a retryable system call 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 situation, 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 C<struct>
+is I<not> optional in this case, as there is also an C<ev_loop>
+I<function>).
+
+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 be shared 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 application 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 or'ed 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 system call 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 overridden 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
+parallelism (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
+readiness notifications you get per iteration.
+
+This backend maps C<EV_READ> to the C<readfds> set and C<EV_WRITE> to the
+C<writefds> set (and to work around Microsoft Windows bugs, also onto the
+C<exceptfds> set on that platform).
+
+=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.
+
+This backend maps C<EV_READ> to C<POLLIN | POLLERR | POLLHUP>, and
+C<EV_WRITE> to C<POLLOUT | POLLERR | POLLHUP>.
+
+=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 mechanism deserves honorable mention as the most misdesigned
+of the more advanced event mechanisms: mere annoyances include silently
+dropping file descriptors, requiring a system call per change per file
+descriptor (and unnecessary guessing of parameters), problems with dup and
+so on. The biggest issue is fork races, however - if a program forks then
+I<both> parent and child process have to recreate the epoll set, which can
+take considerable time (one syscall per file descriptor) and is of course
+hard to detect.
+
+Epoll is also notoriously buggy - embedding epoll fds I<should> work, but
+of course I<doesn't>, and epoll just loves to report events for totally
+I<different> file descriptors (even already closed ones, so one cannot
+even remove them from the set) than registered in the set (especially
+on SMP systems). Libev tries to counter these spurious notifications by
+employing an additional generation counter and comparing that against the
+events to filter out spurious ones, recreating the set when required.
+
+While stopping, setting and starting an I/O watcher in the same iteration
+will result in some caching, there is still a system call per such
+incident (because the same I<file descriptor> could point to a different
+I<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
+file descriptors.
+
+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. Stopping and
+starting a watcher (without re-setting it) also usually doesn't cause
+extra overhead. A fork can both result in spurious notifications as well
+as in libev having to destroy and recreate the epoll object, which can
+take considerable time and thus should be avoided.
+
+All this means that, in practice, C<EVBACKEND_SELECT> can be as fast or
+faster than epoll for maybe up to a hundred file descriptors, depending on
+the usage. So sad.
+
+While nominally embeddable in other event loops, this feature is broken in
+all kernel versions tested so far.
+
+This backend maps C<EV_READ> and C<EV_WRITE> in the same way as
+C<EVBACKEND_POLL>.
+
+=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). Unlike epoll, however, whose brokenness
+is by design, these kqueue bugs can (and eventually will) be fixed
+without API changes to existing programs. For this reason it's not being
+"auto-detected" unless you explicitly specify it 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 system call as with C<EVBACKEND_EPOLL>, it still adds up to
+two event changes per incident. Support for C<fork ()> is very bad (but
+sane, unlike epoll) 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> (but C<poll> is of course
+also broken on OS X)) and, did I mention it, using it only for sockets.
+
+This backend maps C<EV_READ> into an C<EVFILT_READ> kevent with
+C<NOTE_EOF>, and C<EV_WRITE> into an C<EVFILT_WRITE> kevent with
+C<NOTE_EOF>.
+
+=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, with the exception of the spurious readiness
+notifications, this backend actually performed fully to specification
+in all tests and is fully embeddable, which is a rare feat among the
+OS-specific backends (I vastly prefer correctness over speed hacks).
+
+This backend maps C<EV_READ> and C<EV_WRITE> in the same way as
+C<EVBACKEND_POLL>.
+
+=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 or'ed 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.
+
+Example: This is the most typical usage.
+
+   if (!ev_default_loop (0))
+     fatal ("could not initialise libev, bad $LIBEV_FLAGS in environment?");
+
+Example: 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);
+
+Example: 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 yourself 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 (and installed signal
+handlers), 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 that you want to re-use in the child, and how you do this is
+entirely your own problem.
+
+=item int ev_is_default_loop (loop)
+
+Returns true when the given loop is, in fact, the default loop, and 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_now_update (loop)
+
+Establishes the current time by querying the kernel, updating the time
+returned by C<ev_now ()> in the progress. This is a costly operation and
+is usually done automatically within C<ev_loop ()>.
+
+This function is rarely useful, but when some event callback runs for a
+very long time without entering the event loop, updating libev's idea of
+the current time is a good idea.
+
+See also "The special problem of time updates" in the C<ev_timer> section.
+
+=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, that is truly a thing of
+beauty.
+
+A flags value of C<EVLOOP_NONBLOCK> will look for new events, will handle
+those events and any already 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
+necessary) and will handle those and any already outstanding ones. It
+will block your process until at least one new event arrives (which could
+be an event internal to libev itself, so there is no guarantee that a
+user-registered callback will be called), 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 (i.e. "roll your
+own C<ev_loop>"). 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 (by any means), queue and call all fork watchers.
+   - Queue and call all prepare watchers.
+   - If we have been forked, detach and recreate the kernel state
+     as to not disturb the other process.
+   - Update the kernel state with all outstanding changes.
+   - Update the "event loop time" (ev_now ()).
+   - 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" (ev_now ()), and do time jump adjustments.
+   - Queue all expired timers.
+   - Queue all expired periodics.
+   - Unless any 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 or somebody called unloop. 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.
+
+It is safe to call C<ev_unloop> from otuside any C<ev_loop> calls.
+
+=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, call ev_unref() after starting, and ev_ref() before
+stopping it.
+
+As an 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.
+
+   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 time intervals 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 (or to increase power-saving
+opportunities).
+
+The idea 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/jitter/inexactness (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 I/O 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 approaches the timing granularity of most systems.
+
+Setting the I<timeout collect interval> can improve the opportunity for
+saving power, as the program will "bundle" timer callback invocations that
+are "near" in time together, by delaying some, thus reducing the number of
+times the process sleeps and wakes up again. Another useful technique to
+reduce iterations/wake-ups is to use C<ev_periodic> watchers and make sure
+they fire on, say, one-second boundaries only.
+
+=item ev_loop_verify (loop)
+
+This function only does something when C<EV_VERIFY> support has been
+compiled in, which is the default for non-minimal builds. It tries to go
+through all internal structures and checks them for validity. If anything
+is found to be inconsistent, it will print an error message to standard
+error and call C<abort ()>.
+
+This can be used to catch bugs inside libev itself: under normal
+circumstances, this function will never abort as of course libev keeps its
+data structures consistent.
+
+=back
+
+
+=head1 ANATOMY OF A WATCHER
+
+In the following description, uppercase C<TYPE> in names stands for the
+watcher type, e.g. C<ev_TYPE_start> can mean C<ev_timer_start> for timer
+watchers and C<ev_io_start> for I/O watchers.
+
+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, ev_io *w, int revents)
+   {
+     ev_io_stop (w);
+     ev_unloop (loop, EVUNLOOP_ALL);
+   }
+
+   struct ev_loop *loop = ev_default_loop (0);
+
+   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 I<usually> a bad idea to do this on the
+stack).
+
+Each watcher has an associated watcher structure (called C<struct ev_TYPE>
+or simply C<ev_TYPE>, as typedefs are provided for all watcher structs).
+
+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 I/O
+watchers, each time the event loop detects that the file descriptor given
+is readable and/or writable).
+
+Each watcher type further has its own C<< ev_TYPE_set (watcher *, ...) >>
+macro to configure it, with arguments specific to the 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<ev_TYPE_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 occurred, 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. Libev considers these application bugs.
+
+You best act on it by reporting the problem and somehow coping with the
+watcher being stopped. Note that well-written programs should not receive
+an error ever, so when your watcher receives it, this usually indicates a
+bug in your program.
+
+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 multi-threaded
+programs, though, as the fd could already be closed and reused for another
+thing, so beware.
+
+=back
+
+=head2 GENERIC WATCHER FUNCTIONS
+
+=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 (*)(struct ev_loop *loop, ev_TYPE *watcher,
+int revents)>.
+
+Example: Initialise an C<ev_io> watcher in two steps.
+
+   ev_io w;
+   ev_init (&w, my_cb);
+   ev_io_set (&w, STDIN_FILENO, EV_READ);
+
+=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.
+
+See C<ev_init>, above, for an example.
+
+=item C<ev_TYPE_init> (ev_TYPE *watcher, callback, [args])
+
+This convenience macro rolls both C<ev_init> and C<ev_TYPE_set> macro
+calls into a single call. This is the most convenient method to initialise
+a watcher. The same limitations apply, of course.
+
+Example: Initialise and set an C<ev_io> watcher in one step.
+
+   ev_io_init (&w, my_cb, STDIN_FILENO, EV_READ);
+
+=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.
+
+Example: Start the C<ev_io> watcher that is being abused as example in this
+whole section.
+
+   ev_io_start (EV_DEFAULT_UC, &w);
+
+=item C<ev_TYPE_stop> (loop *, ev_TYPE *watcher)
+
+Stops the given watcher if active, and clears the pending status (whether
+the watcher was active or not).
+
+It is possible that stopped watchers are pending - for example,
+non-repeating timers are being stopped when they become pending - but
+calling 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 clamped to the 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, as both are simply passed through to the
+callback.
+
+=item int ev_clear_pending (loop, ev_TYPE *watcher)
+
+If the watcher is pending, this function 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>.
+
+Sometimes it can be useful to "poll" a watcher instead of waiting for its
+callback to be invoked, which can be accomplished with this function.
+
+=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
+   {
+     ev_io io;
+     int otherfd;
+     void *somedata;
+     struct whatever *mostinteresting;
+   };
+
+   ...
+   struct my_io w;
+   ev_io_init (&w.io, my_cb, fd, EV_READ);
+
+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, 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 to use some data structure with multiple
+embedded 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: Either you store the address of your C<my_biggy> struct
+in the C<data> member of the watcher (for woozies), or you need to use
+some pointer arithmetic using C<offsetof> inside your watchers (for real
+programmers):
+
+   #include <stddef.h>
+
+   static void
+   t1_cb (EV_P_ 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_ 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 cannot use non-blocking mode, 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" readiness 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 separately
+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). Some people additionally
+use C<SIGALRM> and an interval timer, just to be sure you won't block
+indefinitely.
+
+But really, best use non-blocking mode.
+
+=head3 The special problem of disappearing file descriptors
+
+Some backends (e.g. kqueue, epoll) need to be told about closing a file
+descriptor (either due to calling C<close> explicitly or any other means,
+such as C<dup2>). 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 C<SIGPIPE>:
+when writing to a pipe whose other end has been closed, your program gets
+sent 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
+receive events for and C<events> is either C<EV_READ>, C<EV_WRITE> or
+C<EV_READ | EV_WRITE>, to express the desire 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, ev_io *w, int revents)
+   {
+      ev_io_stop (loop, w);
+     .. read from stdin here (or from w->fd) and handle any I/O errors
+   }
+
+   ...
+   struct ev_loop *loop = ev_default_init (0);
+   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 January last
+year, it will still time out after (roughly) one hour. "Roughly" because
+detecting time jumps is hard, and some inaccuracies are unavoidable (the
+monotonic clock option helps a lot here).
+
+The callback is guaranteed to be invoked only I<after> its timeout has
+passed, but if multiple timers become ready during the same loop iteration
+then order of execution is undefined.
+
+=head3 Be smart about timeouts
+
+Many real-world problems involve some kind of timeout, usually for error
+recovery. A typical example is an HTTP request - if the other side hangs,
+you want to raise some error after a while.
+
+What follows are some ways to handle this problem, from obvious and
+inefficient to smart and efficient.
+
+In the following, a 60 second activity timeout is assumed - a timeout that
+gets reset to 60 seconds each time there is activity (e.g. each time some
+data or other life sign was received).
+
+=over 4
+
+=item 1. Use a timer and stop, reinitialise and start it on activity.
+
+This is the most obvious, but not the most simple way: In the beginning,
+start the watcher:
+
+   ev_timer_init (timer, callback, 60., 0.);
+   ev_timer_start (loop, timer);
+
+Then, each time there is some activity, C<ev_timer_stop> it, initialise it
+and start it again:
+
+   ev_timer_stop (loop, timer);
+   ev_timer_set (timer, 60., 0.);
+   ev_timer_start (loop, timer);
+
+This is relatively simple to implement, but means that each time there is
+some activity, libev will first have to remove the timer from its internal
+data structure and then add it again. Libev tries to be fast, but it's
+still not a constant-time operation.
+
+=item 2. Use a timer and re-start it with C<ev_timer_again> inactivity.
+
+This is the easiest way, and involves using C<ev_timer_again> instead of
+C<ev_timer_start>.
+
+To implement this, configure an C<ev_timer> with a C<repeat> value
+of C<60> and then call C<ev_timer_again> at start and 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 both the C<ev_timer_start> function and the
+C<after> argument to C<ev_timer_set>, and only ever use the C<repeat>
+member and C<ev_timer_again>.
+
+At start:
+
+   ev_timer_init (timer, callback);
+   timer->repeat = 60.;
+   ev_timer_again (loop, timer);
+
+Each time there is some activity:
+
+   ev_timer_again (loop, timer);
+
+It is even possible to change the time-out on the fly, regardless of
+whether the watcher is active or not:
+
+   timer->repeat = 30.;
+   ev_timer_again (loop, timer);
+
+This is slightly more efficient then stopping/starting the timer each time
+you want to modify its timeout value, as libev does not have to completely
+remove and re-insert the timer from/into its internal data structure.
+
+It is, however, even simpler than the "obvious" way to do it.
+
+=item 3. Let the timer time out, but then re-arm it as required.
+
+This method is more tricky, but usually most efficient: Most timeouts are
+relatively long compared to the intervals between other activity - in
+our example, within 60 seconds, there are usually many I/O events with
+associated activity resets.
+
+In this case, it would be more efficient to leave the C<ev_timer> alone,
+but remember the time of last activity, and check for a real timeout only
+within the callback:
+
+   ev_tstamp last_activity; // time of last activity
+
+   static void
+   callback (EV_P_ ev_timer *w, int revents)
+   {
+     ev_tstamp now     = ev_now (EV_A);
+     ev_tstamp timeout = last_activity + 60.;
+
+     // if last_activity + 60. is older than now, we did time out
+     if (timeout < now)
+       {
+         // timeout occured, take action
+       }
+     else
+       {
+         // callback was invoked, but there was some activity, re-arm
+         // the watcher to fire in last_activity + 60, which is
+         // guaranteed to be in the future, so "again" is positive:
+         w->repeat = timeout - now;
+         ev_timer_again (EV_A_ w);
+       }
+   }
+
+To summarise the callback: first calculate the real timeout (defined
+as "60 seconds after the last activity"), then check if that time has
+been reached, which means something I<did>, in fact, time out. Otherwise
+the callback was invoked too early (C<timeout> is in the future), so
+re-schedule the timer to fire at that future time, to see if maybe we have
+a timeout then.
+
+Note how C<ev_timer_again> is used, taking advantage of the
+C<ev_timer_again> optimisation when the timer is already running.
+
+This scheme causes more callback invocations (about one every 60 seconds
+minus half the average time between activity), but virtually no calls to
+libev to change the timeout.
+
+To start the timer, simply initialise the watcher and set C<last_activity>
+to the current time (meaning we just have some activity :), then call the
+callback, which will "do the right thing" and start the timer:
+
+   ev_timer_init (timer, callback);
+   last_activity = ev_now (loop);
+   callback (loop, timer, EV_TIMEOUT);
+
+And when there is some activity, simply store the current time in
+C<last_activity>, no libev calls at all:
+
+   last_actiivty = ev_now (loop);
+
+This technique is slightly more complex, but in most cases where the
+time-out is unlikely to be triggered, much more efficient.
+
+Changing the timeout is trivial as well (if it isn't hard-coded in the
+callback :) - just change the timeout and invoke the callback, which will
+fix things for you.
+
+=item 4. Wee, just use a double-linked list for your timeouts.
+
+If there is not one request, but many thousands (millions...), all
+employing some kind of timeout with the same timeout value, then one can
+do even better:
+
+When starting the timeout, calculate the timeout value and put the timeout
+at the I<end> of the list.
+
+Then use an C<ev_timer> to fire when the timeout at the I<beginning> of
+the list is expected to fire (for example, using the technique #3).
+
+When there is some activity, remove the timer from the list, recalculate
+the timeout, append it to the end of the list again, and make sure to
+update the C<ev_timer> if it was taken from the beginning of the list.
+
+This way, one can manage an unlimited number of timeouts in O(1) time for
+starting, stopping and updating the timers, at the expense of a major
+complication, and having to use a constant timeout. The constant timeout
+ensures that the list stays sorted.
+
+=back
+
+So which method the best?
+
+Method #2 is a simple no-brain-required solution that is adequate in most
+situations. Method #3 requires a bit more thinking, but handles many cases
+better, and isn't very complicated either. In most case, choosing either
+one is fine, with #3 being better in typical situations.
+
+Method #1 is almost always a bad idea, and buys you nothing. Method #4 is
+rather complicated, but extremely efficient, something that really pays
+off after the first million or so of active timers, i.e. it's usually
+overkill :)
+
+=head3 The special problem of time updates
+
+Establishing the current time is a costly operation (it usually takes at
+least two system calls): EV therefore updates its idea of the current
+time only before and after C<ev_loop> collects new events, which causes a
+growing difference between C<ev_now ()> and C<ev_time ()> when handling
+lots of events in one iteration.
+
+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.);
+
+If the event loop is suspended for a long time, you can also force an
+update of the time returned by C<ev_now ()> by calling C<ev_now_update
+()>.
+
+=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 once the timeout is
+reached. 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 normally
+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 non-repeating, 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, see "Be smart about timeouts", above, for a
+usage example.
+
+=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, ev_timer *w, int revents)
+   {
+     .. one minute over, w is actually stopped right here
+   }
+
+   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, ev_timer *w, int revents)
+   {
+     .. ten seconds without any activity
+   }
+
+   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 wall clock time (absolute time). You can tell a periodic watcher
+to trigger after some specific point in time. For example, if you tell a
+periodic watcher to trigger in 10 seconds (by specifying e.g. C<ev_now ()
++ 10.>, that is, an absolute time not a delay) and then reset your system
+clock to January of the previous year, then it will take more than year
+to trigger the event (unlike an C<ev_timer>, which would still trigger
+roughly 10 seconds later as it uses a relative timeout).
+
+C<ev_periodic>s 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 guaranteed to be invoked only when the
+time (C<at>) has 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 most complex:
+
+=over 4
+
+=item * absolute timer (at = time, interval = reschedule_cb = 0)
+
+In this configuration the watcher triggers an event after the wall clock
+time C<at> has passed. It will not repeat and will not adjust when a time
+jump occurs, that is, if it is to be run at January 1st 2011 then it will
+only run when the system clock 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 the
+system clock, for example, here is a C<ev_periodic> that triggers each
+hour, on the hour:
+
+   ev_periodic_set (&periodic, 0., 3600., 0);
+
+This doesn't mean there will always be 3600 seconds in between triggers,
+but only that 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, and in fact is often specified as zero.
+
+Note also that there is an upper limit to how often a timer can fire (CPU
+speed for example), so if C<interval> is very small then timing stability
+will of course deteriorate. Libev itself tries to be exact to be about one
+millisecond (if the OS supports it and the machine is fast enough).
+
+=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 whatsoever>.
+
+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 the
+only event loop modification you are allowed to do).
+
+The callback prototype is C<ev_tstamp (*reschedule_cb)(ev_periodic
+*w, ev_tstamp now)>, e.g.:
+
+   static ev_tstamp
+   my_rescheduler (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 higher than or
+equal to the passed C<now> value >>.
+
+This can be used to create very complex timers, such as a timer that
+triggers on "next 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 ev_periodic_at (ev_periodic *)
+
+When active, returns the absolute time that the watcher is supposed to
+trigger next.
+
+=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)(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.
+
+=back
+
+=head3 Examples
+
+Example: Call a callback every hour, or, more precisely, whenever the
+system time is divisible by 3600. The callback invocation times have
+potentially a lot of jitter, but good long-term stability.
+
+   static void
+   clock_cb (struct ev_loop *loop, ev_io *w, int revents)
+   {
+     ... its now a full hour (UTC, or TAI or whatever your clock follows)
+   }
+
+   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 (ev_periodic *w, ev_tstamp now)
+   {
+     return now + (3600. - fmod (now, 3600.));
+   }
+
+   ev_periodic_init (&hourly_tick, clock_cb, 0., 0., my_scheduler_cb);
+
+Example: Call a callback every hour, starting now:
+
+   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.
+
+If you want signals asynchronously, just use C<sigaction> as you would
+do without libev and forget about sharing the signal. You can even use
+C<ev_async> from a signal handler to synchronously wake up an event loop.
+
+You can configure as many watchers as you like per signal. Only when the
+first watcher gets started will libev actually register a signal handler
+with the kernel (thus it coexists with your own signal handlers as long as
+you don't register any with libev for the same signal). 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 system calls should not be unduly
+interrupted. If you have a problem with system calls 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.
+
+   static void
+   sigint_cb (struct ev_loop *loop, ev_signal *w, int revents)
+   {
+     ev_unloop (loop, EVUNLOOP_ALL);
+   }
+
+   ev_signal signal_watcher;
+   ev_signal_init (&signal_watcher, sigint_cb, SIGINT);
+   ev_signal_start (loop, &signal_watcher);
+
+
+=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 or
+exits). 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), i.e.,
+forking and then immediately registering a watcher for the child is fine,
+but forking and registering a watcher a few event loop iterations later is
+not.
+
+Only the default event loop is capable of handling signals, and therefore
+you can only register 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 occurrence
+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 Stopping the Child Watcher
+
+Currently, the child watcher never gets stopped, even when the
+child terminates, so normally one needs to stop the watcher in the
+callback. Future versions of libev might stop the watcher automatically
+when a child exit is detected.
+
+=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_ 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 file system path for attribute changes. That is, it calls
+C<stat> on that path in regular intervals (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" (or more correctly "path cannot be stat'ed") 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<must not> end in a slash or contain special components such as
+C<.> or C<..>. The path I<should> be absolute: If it is relative and
+your working directory changes, then the behaviour is undefined.
+
+Since there is no portable change notification interface available, 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 that's 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, the only OS-specific interface implemented
+is the Linux inotify interface (implementing kqueue support is left as an
+exercise for the reader. Note, however, that the author sees no way of
+implementing C<ev_stat> semantics with kqueue, except as a hint).
+
+=head3 ABI Issues (Largefile Support)
+
+Libev by default (unless the user overrides this) uses the default
+compilation environment, which means that on systems with large file
+support disabled by default, 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 noticeably displayed with ev_stat and large file support.
+
+The solution for this is to lobby your distribution maker to make large
+file interfaces available by default (as e.g. FreeBSD does) and not
+optional. Libev cannot simply switch on large file support because it has
+to exchange stat structures with application programs compiled using the
+default compilation environment.
+
+=head3 Inotify and Kqueue
+
+When C<inotify (7)> support has been compiled into libev 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 presence 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 presence of inotify support
+there are many cases where libev has to resort to regular C<stat> polling,
+but as long as kernel 2.6.25 or newer is used (2.6.24 and older have too
+many bugs), the path exists (i.e. stat succeeds), and the path resides on
+a local filesystem (libev currently assumes only ext2/3, jfs, reiserfs and
+xfs are fully working) libev usually gets away without 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, and detecting renames, unlinks
+etc. is difficult.
+
+=head3 C<stat ()> is a synchronous operation
+
+Libev doesn't normally do any kind of I/O itself, and so is not blocking
+the process. The exception are C<ev_stat> watchers - those call C<stat
+()>, which is a synchronous operation.
+
+For local paths, this usually doesn't matter: unless the system is very
+busy or the intervals between stat's are large, a stat call will be fast,
+as the path data is usually in memory already (except when starting the
+watcher).
+
+For networked file systems, calling C<stat ()> can block an indefinite
+time due to network issues, and even under good conditions, a stat call
+often takes multiple milliseconds.
+
+Therefore, it is best to avoid using C<ev_stat> watchers on networked
+paths, although this is fully supported by libev.
+
+=head3 The special problem of stat time resolution
+
+The C<stat ()> system call only supports full-second resolution portably,
+and even on systems where the resolution is higher, most file systems
+still only support whole seconds.
+
+That means that, if the time is the only thing that changes, you can
+easily 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 unless the
+stat data does change in other ways (e.g. file size).
+
+The solution to this is to delay acting on a change for slightly more
+than a second (or till slightly after the next full second boundary), using
+a roughly one-second-delay C<ev_timer> (e.g. C<ev_timer_set (w, 0., 1.02);
+ev_timer_again (loop, w)>).
+
+The C<.02> offset is added to work around small timing inconsistencies
+of some operating systems (where the second counter of the current time
+might be be delayed. One such system is the Linux kernel, where a call to
+C<gettimeofday> might return a timestamp with a full second later than
+a subsequent C<time> call - if the equivalent of C<time ()> is used to
+update file times then there will be a small window where the kernel uses
+the previous second to update file times but libev might already execute
+the timer callback).
+
+=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 receive an C<EV_STAT> event 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 function to avoid
+detecting this change (while introducing a race condition if you are not
+the only one changing the path). 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
+C<ev_statdata>, this is usually the (or one of the) C<struct stat> types
+suitable for your system, but you can only rely on the POSIX-standardised
+members to be present. 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>, or, more precisely, one or more of these members
+differ: C<st_dev>, C<st_ino>, C<st_mode>, C<st_nlink>, C<st_uid>,
+C<st_gid>, C<st_rdev>, C<st_size>, C<st_atime>, C<st_mtime>, C<st_ctime>.
+
+=item ev_tstamp interval [read-only]
+
+The specified interval.
+
+=item const char *path [read-only]
+
+The file system 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., 1.02);
+
+
+=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
+as receiving "events").
+
+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, ev_idle *w, int revents)
+   {
+     free (w);
+     // now do something you wanted to do when the program has
+     // no longer anything immediate to do.
+   }
+
+   ev_idle *idle_watcher = malloc (sizeof (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 pairs:
+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. They 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 exactly this functionality). Then, in the check watcher,
+you check for any events that occurred (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 (this doesn't matter for C<ev_prepare> watchers).
+
+Also, C<ev_check> watchers (and C<ev_prepare> watchers, too) should not
+activate ("feed") events into libev. While libev fully supports this, they
+might get executed 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, 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 as a 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 (struct ev_loop *loop, ev_io *w, int revents)
+   {
+   }
+
+   // create io watchers for each fd and a timer before blocking
+   static void
+   adns_prepare_cb (struct 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 (struct 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 (libadns 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 not flexible enough to support it. Instead, you can
+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 uses
+this approach, effectively embedding EV as a client into the horrible
+libglib event loop.
+
+   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 call C<poll> and then
+C<kevent>, but at least you can use both mechanisms for what they are
+best: C<kqueue> for scalable sockets and C<poll> if you want it to work :)
+
+As for prioritising I/O: under rare circumstances 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 (the callback doesn't need to invoke the
+C<ev_embed_sweep> function directly, it 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 whenever necessary.
+
+Fork detection will be handled transparently while the C<ev_embed> watcher
+is active, i.e., the embedded loop will automatically be forked when the
+embedding loop forks. In other cases, the user is responsible for calling
+C<ev_loop_fork> on the embedded loop.
+
+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 C<ev_embed> and fork
+
+While the C<ev_embed> watcher is running, forks in the embedding loop will
+automatically be applied to the embedded loop as well, so no special
+fork handling is required in that case. When the watcher is not running,
+however, it is still the task of the libev user to call C<ev_loop_fork ()>
+as applicable.
+
+=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 that, 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
+appropriate 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 embeddable loop is stored in
+C<loop_lo> (which is C<loop_hi> in the case no embeddable loop can be
+used).
+
+   struct ev_loop *loop_hi = ev_default_init (0);
+   struct ev_loop *loop_lo = 0;
+   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;
+   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 how to 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 fictitious 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_async_set> macro, but using it is utterly pointless,
+trust 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 from other threads, signal or
+similar contexts (see the discussion of C<EV_ATOMIC_T> in the embedding
+section below on what exactly this means).
+
+This call incurs the overhead of a system call only once per loop iteration,
+so while the overhead might be noticeable, 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 whether invoking the loop might be a good idea.
+
+Not that this does I<not> check whether the watcher itself is pending, only
+whether 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 stops 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 the
+C<events> argument is being ignored. Otherwise, an C<ev_io> watcher for
+the given C<fd> and C<events> set will be created 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. C<0> is a valid timeout.
+
+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>. Note that it is possible to receive I<both>
+a timeout and an io event at the same time - you probably should give io
+events precedence.
+
+Example: wait up to ten seconds for data to appear on STDIN_FILENO.
+
+   static void stdin_ready (int revents, void *arg)
+   {
+     if (revents & EV_READ)
+       /* stdin might have data for us, joy! */;
+     else if (revents & EV_TIMEOUT)
+       /* doh, nothing entered */;
+   }
+
+   ev_once (STDIN_FILENO, EV_READ, 10., stdin_ready, 0);
+
+=item ev_feed_event (struct 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 (struct 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 (struct ev_loop *loop, int signum)
+
+Feed an event as if the given signal occurred (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 convenience 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 (object *)
+
+This is an B<experimental> feature that might go away in a future version.
+
+This is a variation of a method callback - leaving out the method to call
+will default the method to C<operator ()>, which makes it possible to use
+functor objects without having to manually specify the C<operator ()> all
+the time. Incidentally, you can then also leave out the template argument
+list.
+
+The C<operator ()> method prototype must be C<void operator ()(watcher &w,
+int revents)>.
+
+See the method-C<set> above for more details.
+
+Example: use a functor object as callback.
+
+   struct myfunctor
+   {
+     void operator() (ev::io &w, int revents)
+     {
+       ...
+     }
+   }
+    
+   myfunctor f;
+
+   ev::io w;
+   w.set (&f);
+
+=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: Use a plain function as callback.
+
+   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 ([arguments])
+
+Basically the same as C<ev_TYPE_set>, with the same arguments. 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
+number of 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>, but C<AnyEvent::DNS> is preferred nowadays),
+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 at
+L<http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/EV>.
+
+=item Python
+
+Python bindings can be found at L<http://code.google.com/p/pyev/>. It
+seems to be quite complete and well-documented. Note, however, that the
+patch they require for libev is outright dangerous as it breaks the ABI
+for everybody else, and therefore, should never be applied in an installed
+libev (if python requires an incompatible ABI then it needs to embed
+libev).
+
+=item Ruby
+
+Tony Arcieri has written a ruby extension that offers access to a subset
+of the libev API and adds file handle 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/>.
+
+Roger Pack reports that using the link order C<-lws2_32 -lmsvcrt-ruby-190>
+makes rev work even on mingw.
+
+=item D
+
+Leandro Lucarella has written a D language binding (F<ev.d>) for libev, to
+be found at L<http://proj.llucax.com.ar/wiki/evd>.
+
+=item Ocaml
+
+Erkki Seppala has written Ocaml bindings for libev, to be found at
+L<http://modeemi.cs.tut.fi/~flux/software/ocaml-ev/>.
+
+=back
+
+
+=head1 MACRO MAGIC
+
+Libev can be compiled with a variety of options, the most fundamental
+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 application.
+
+=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, that's 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 configuration 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 absence of
+autoconf is documented 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.
+
+In stanbdalone mode, libev will still try to automatically deduce the
+configuration, but has to be more conservative.
+
+=item EV_USE_MONOTONIC
+
+If defined to be C<1>, libev will try to detect the availability of the
+monotonic clock option at both compile time 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>). See also C<EV_USE_CLOCK_SYSCALL>.
+
+=item EV_USE_REALTIME
+
+If defined to be C<1>, libev will try to detect the availability of the
+real-time clock option at compile time (and assume its availability
+at runtime if successful). Otherwise no use of the real-time 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. Defaults to the opposite value of
+C<EV_USE_CLOCK_SYSCALL>.
+
+=item EV_USE_CLOCK_SYSCALL
+
+If defined to be C<1>, libev will try to use a direct syscall instead
+of calling the system-provided C<clock_gettime> function. This option
+exists because on GNU/Linux, C<clock_gettime> is in C<librt>, but C<librt>
+unconditionally pulls in C<libpthread>, slowing down single-threaded
+programs needlessly. Using a direct syscall is slightly slower (in
+theory), because no optimised vdso implementation can be used, but avoids
+the pthread dependency. Defaults to C<1> on GNU/Linux with glibc 2.x or
+higher, as it simplifies linking (no need for C<-lrt>).
+
+=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 auto-detection 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 mis-guesses 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,
+configures the maximum size of the C<fd_set>.
+
+=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 absence 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 application 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. Embed watchers rely on most other
+watcher types, which therefore must not be disabled.
+
+=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 this is used to override some
+inlining decisions, saves roughly 30% code size on amd64. It also selects a
+much smaller 2-heap for timer management over the default 4-heap.
+
+=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_USE_4HEAP
+
+Heaps are not very cache-efficient. To improve the cache-efficiency of the
+timer and periodics heaps, libev uses a 4-heap when this symbol is defined
+to C<1>. The 4-heap uses more complicated (longer) code but has noticeably
+faster performance with many (thousands) of watchers.
+
+The default is C<1> unless C<EV_MINIMAL> is set in which case it is C<0>
+(disabled).
+
+=item EV_HEAP_CACHE_AT
+
+Heaps are not very cache-efficient. To improve the cache-efficiency of the
+timer and periodics heaps, libev can cache the timestamp (I<at>) within
+the heap structure (selected by defining C<EV_HEAP_CACHE_AT> to C<1>),
+which uses 8-12 bytes more per watcher and a few hundred bytes more code,
+but avoids random read accesses on heap changes. This improves performance
+noticeably with many (hundreds) of watchers.
+
+The default is C<1> unless C<EV_MINIMAL> is set in which case it is C<0>
+(disabled).
+
+=item EV_VERIFY
+
+Controls how much internal verification (see C<ev_loop_verify ()>) will
+be done: If set to C<0>, no internal verification code will be compiled
+in. If set to C<1>, then verification code will be compiled in, but not
+called. If set to C<2>, then the internal verification code will be
+called once per loop, which can slow down libev. If set to C<3>, then the
+verification code will be called very frequently, which will slow down
+libev considerably.
+
+The default is C<1>, unless C<EV_MINIMAL> is set, in which case it will be
+C<0>.
+
+=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++.
+
+=back
+
+=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 inconvenient 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 INTERACTION WITH OTHER PROGRAMS OR LIBRARIES
+
+=head2 THREADS AND COROUTINES
+
+=head3 THREADS
+
+All libev functions are reentrant and thread-safe unless explicitly
+documented otherwise, but libev implements no locking itself. This means
+that you can use as many loops as you want in parallel, as long as there
+are no concurrent calls into any libev function with the same loop
+parameter (C<ev_default_*> calls have an implicit default loop parameter,
+of course): libev guarantees that different event loops share no data
+structures that need any locking.
+
+Or to put it differently: calls with different loop parameters can be done
+concurrently 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).
+
+Specifically to support threads (and signal handlers), libev implements
+so-called C<ev_async> watchers, which allow some limited form of
+concurrency on the same event loop, namely waking it up "from the
+outside".
+
+If you want to know which design (one loop, locking, or multiple loops
+without or something else still) is best for your problem, then I cannot
+help you, but here is some generic advice:
+
+=over 4
+
+=item * most applications have a main thread: use the default libev loop
+in that thread, or create a separate 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-robin fashion.
+
+Choosing a model is hard - look around, learn, know that usually you can 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...).
+
+An example use would be to communicate signals or other events that only
+work in the default loop by registering the signal watcher with the
+default loop and triggering an C<ev_async> watcher from the default loop
+watcher callback into the event loop interested in the signal.
+
+=back
+
+=head3 COROUTINES
+
+Libev is very accommodating to coroutines ("cooperative threads"):
+libev fully supports nesting calls to its 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 taken to ensure that libev does not keep local state inside
+C<ev_loop>, and other calls do not usually allow for coroutine switches as
+they do not call any callbacks.
+
+=head2 COMPILER WARNINGS
+
+Depending on your compiler and compiler settings, you might get no or a
+lot of warnings when compiling libev code. Some people are apparently
+scared by this.
+
+However, these are unavoidable for many reasons. For one, each compiler
+has different warnings, and each user has different tastes regarding
+warning options. "Warn-free" code therefore cannot be a goal except when
+targeting a specific compiler and compiler-version.
+
+Another reason is that some compiler warnings require elaborate
+workarounds, or other changes to the code that make it less clear and less
+maintainable.
+
+And of course, some compiler warnings are just plain stupid, or simply
+wrong (because they don't actually warn about the condition their message
+seems to warn about). For example, certain older gcc versions had some
+warnings that resulted an extreme number of false positives. These have
+been fixed, but some people still insist on making code warn-free with
+such buggy versions.
+
+While libev is written to generate as few warnings as possible,
+"warn-free" code is not a goal, and it is recommended not to build libev
+with any compiler warnings enabled unless you are prepared to cope with
+them (e.g. by ignoring them). Remember that warnings are just that:
+warnings, not errors, or proof of bugs.
+
+
+=head2 VALGRIND
+
+Valgrind has a special section here because it is a popular tool that is
+highly useful. Unfortunately, valgrind reports are very hard to interpret.
+
+If you think you found a bug (memory leak, uninitialised data access etc.)
+in libev, then check twice: If valgrind reports something like:
+
+   ==2274==    definitely lost: 0 bytes in 0 blocks.
+   ==2274==      possibly lost: 0 bytes in 0 blocks.
+   ==2274==    still reachable: 256 bytes in 1 blocks.
+
+Then there is no memory leak, just as memory accounted to global variables
+is not a memleak - the memory is still being referenced, and didn't leak.
+
+Similarly, under some circumstances, valgrind might report kernel bugs
+as if it were a bug in libev (e.g. in realloc or in the poll backend,
+although an acceptable workaround has been found here), or it might be
+confused.
+
+Keep in mind that valgrind is a very good tool, but only a tool. Don't
+make it into some kind of religion.
+
+If you are unsure about something, feel free to contact the mailing list
+with the full valgrind report and an explanation on why you think this
+is a bug in libev (best check the archives, too :). However, don't be
+annoyed when you get a brisk "this is no bug" answer and take the chance
+of learning how to interpret valgrind properly.
+
+If you need, for some reason, empty reports from valgrind for your project
+I suggest using suppression lists.
+
+
+=head1 PORTABILITY NOTES
+
+=head2 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.
+
+Lifting these limitations would basically require the full
+re-implementation of the I/O system. If you are into these kinds of
+things, then note that glib does exactly that for you in a very portable
+way (note also that glib is the slowest event library known to man).
+
+There is no supported compilation method available on windows except
+embedding it into other applications.
+
+Not a libev limitation but worth mentioning: windows apparently doesn't
+accept large writes: instead of resulting in a partial write, windows will
+either accept everything or return C<ENOBUFS> if the buffer is too large,
+so make sure you only write small amounts into your sockets (less than a
+megabyte seems safe, but this apparently depends on the amount of memory
+available).
+
+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 readiness
+notification model, which cannot be implemented efficiently on windows
+(Microsoft monopoly games).
+
+A typical way to use libev under windows is to embed it (see the embedding
+section for details) and use the following F<evwrap.h> header file instead
+of F<ev.h>:
+
+   #define EV_STANDALONE              /* keeps ev from requiring config.h */
+   #define EV_SELECT_IS_WINSOCKET 1   /* configure libev for windows select */
+
+   #include "ev.h"
+
+And compile the following F<evwrap.c> file into your project (make sure
+you do I<not> compile the F<ev.c> or any other embedded source files!):
+
+   #include "evwrap.h"
+   #include "ev.c"
+
+=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> (it is
+also extremely buggy). This makes select very inefficient, and also
+requires a mapping from file descriptors to socket handles (the Microsoft
+C runtime provides the function C<_open_osfhandle> for this). 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 maximum
+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. Great).
+
+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
+
+=head2 PORTABILITY REQUIREMENTS
+
+In addition to a working ISO-C implementation and of course the
+backend-specific APIs, libev relies on a few additional extensions:
+
+=over 4
+
+=item C<void (*)(ev_watcher_type *, int revents)> must have compatible
+calling conventions regardless of C<ev_watcher_type *>.
+
+Libev assumes not only that all watcher pointers have the same internal
+structure (guaranteed by POSIX but not by ISO C for example), but it also
+assumes that the same (machine) code can be used to call any watcher
+callback: The watcher callbacks have different type signatures, but libev
+calls them using an C<ev_watcher *> internally.
+
+=item C<sig_atomic_t volatile> must be thread-atomic as well
+
+The type C<sig_atomic_t volatile> (or whatever is defined as
+C<EV_ATOMIC_T>) must be atomic with respect to accesses from different
+threads. This is not part of the specification for C<sig_atomic_t>, but is
+believed to be sufficiently portable.
+
+=item C<sigprocmask> must work in a threaded environment
+
+Libev uses C<sigprocmask> to temporarily block signals. This is not
+allowed in a threaded program (C<pthread_sigmask> has to be used). Typical
+pthread implementations will either allow C<sigprocmask> in the "main
+thread" or will block signals process-wide, both behaviours would
+be compatible with libev. Interaction between C<sigprocmask> and
+C<pthread_sigmask> could complicate things, however.
+
+The most portable way to handle signals is to block signals in all threads
+except the initial one, and run the default loop in the initial thread as
+well.
+
+=item C<long> must be large enough for common memory allocation sizes
+
+To improve portability and simplify its API, libev uses C<long> internally
+instead of C<size_t> when allocating its data structures. On non-POSIX
+systems (Microsoft...) this might be unexpectedly low, but is still at
+least 31 bits everywhere, which is enough for hundreds of millions of
+watchers.
+
+=item C<double> must hold a time value in seconds with enough accuracy
+
+The type C<double> is used to represent timestamps. It is required to
+have at least 51 bits of mantissa (and 9 bits of exponent), which is good
+enough for at least into the year 4000. This requirement is fulfilled by
+implementations implementing IEEE 754 (basically all existing ones).
+
+=back
+
+If you know of other additional requirements drop me a note.
+
+
+=head1 ALGORITHMIC COMPLEXITIES
+
+In this section the complexities of (many of) the algorithms used inside
+libev will be documented. 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 rarer with higher number of elements, so O(1) might
+mean that libev does 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, so they 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: one is typical, two
+is rare).
+
+=item Finding the next timer in each loop iteration: O(1)
+
+By virtue of using a binary or 4-heap, the next timer is always found at a
+fixed position in 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 whether 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) with respect to 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 system call 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 AUTHOR
+
+Marc Lehmann <libev@schmorp.de>, with repeated corrections by Mikael Magnusson.
+