libevent - an event notification library

The libevent API provides a mechanism to execute a callback
function when a specific event occurs on a file descriptor or after
a timeout has been reached. Furthermore, libevent also support         
callbacks due to signals or regular timeouts.			      
								      
libevent is meant to replace the event loop found in event driven     
network servers. An application just needs to call event_dispatch()
and then add or remove events dynamically without having to change 
the event loop. 						 
								 
Currently, libevent supports /dev/poll, kqueue(2), select(2),	 
poll(2) and epoll(4). It also has experimental support for	 
real-time signals. The internal event mechanism is completely
independent of the exposed event API, and a simple update of
libevent can provide new functionality without having to redesign
the applications. As a result, Libevent allows for portable
application development and provides the most scalable event
notification mechanism available on an operating system.

More information about event notification mechanisms for network
servers can be found on Dan Kegel's "The C10K problem" web page.
Another library that abstracts asynchronous event notification is
liboop.

--
Niels Provos
Last modified: Wed Apr  7 23:19:27 EDT 2004