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- <meta name="created" content="Sun Dec 9 20:45:16 2007" />
+ <meta name="created" content="Wed Dec 12 05:53:55 2007" />
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</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#WATCHER_TYPES">WATCHER TYPES</a>
-<ul><li><a href="#code_ev_io_code_is_this_file_descrip"><code>ev_io</code> - is this file descriptor readable or writable?</a></li>
+<ul><li><a href="#code_ev_io_code_is_this_file_descrip"><code>ev_io</code> - is this file descriptor readable or writable?</a>
+<ul><li><a href="#The_special_problem_of_disappearing_">The special problem of disappearing file descriptors</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
<li><a href="#code_ev_timer_code_relative_and_opti"><code>ev_timer</code> - relative and optionally repeating timeouts</a></li>
<li><a href="#code_ev_periodic_code_to_cron_or_not"><code>ev_periodic</code> - to cron or not to cron?</a></li>
<li><a href="#code_ev_signal_code_signal_me_when_a"><code>ev_signal</code> - signal me when a signal gets signalled!</a></li>
<dt>int ev_version_major ()</dt>
<dt>int ev_version_minor ()</dt>
<dd>
- <p>You can find out the major and minor API/ABI version numbers of the library
+ <p>You can find out the major and minor ABI version numbers of the library
you linked against by calling the functions <code>ev_version_major</code> and
<code>ev_version_minor</code>. If you want, you can compare against the global
symbols <code>EV_VERSION_MAJOR</code> and <code>EV_VERSION_MINOR</code>, which specify the
version of the library your program was compiled against.</p>
- <p>These version numbers refer to the API and ABI version of the library, not
-the release version.</p>
+ <p>These version numbers refer to the ABI version of the library, not the
+release version.</p>
<p>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
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).</p>
+
+</div>
+<h3 id="The_special_problem_of_disappearing_">The special problem of disappearing file descriptors</h3>
+<div id="The_special_problem_of_disappearing_-2">
+<p>Some backends (e.g kqueue, epoll) need to be told about closing a file
+descriptor (either by calling <code>close</code> explicitly or by any other means,
+such as <code>dup</code>). 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.</p>
+<p>To avoid having to explicitly tell libev about such cases, libev follows
+the following policy: Each time <code>ev_io_set</code> 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</i> to call <code>ev_io_set</code> (or <code>ev_io_init</code>) when you change the
+descriptor even if the file descriptor number itself did not change.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+
<dl>
<dt>ev_io_init (ev_io *, callback, int fd, int events)</dt>
<dt>ev_io_set (ev_io *, int fd, int events)</dt>
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