--- libev/ev.pod 2007/12/09 19:47:30 1.80 +++ libev/ev.pod 2007/12/12 04:53:58 1.81 @@ -913,6 +913,28 @@ such as poll (fortunately in our Xlib example, Xlib already does this on its own, so its quite safe to use). +=head3 The special problem of disappearing file descriptors + +Some backends (e.g kqueue, epoll) need to be told about closing a file +descriptor (either by calling C explicitly or by any other means, +such as C). 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 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 to call C (or C) 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. + + =over 4 =item ev_io_init (ev_io *, callback, int fd, int events)