eventxx 0.6

libevent is a popular API that 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.
eventxx project is a simple, direct, one-header inline C++ wrapper for libevent. Yes, its just one header file, so if you want to use it you can just copy the file to your project and you are set (well, youll need to link to libevent too ;). I know eventxx will work with libevent 1.1 and 1.2 if you use the event_base_free() fix (see Status section for more details).
Its designed to be as close to use to libevent (without compromising modern C++ programming techniques) and efficient (since all implementation is trivial and inline, theoretically, it imposes no overhead at all) as possible.
Please, visit the eventxx website for the latest version of this documentation.
You can always get the current release from the release directory or grab the most up to date sources from the darcs repository.
You can also take a look the the darcsweb interface to see the latest changes online or subscribe to its RSS feed to follow the development.
Usage:
You probably should read libevent documentation to get started or at least just for reference, although eventxx is pretty simple so you can jump right into the Example section (or the example list) and write a working program without much trouble.
This wrapper was designed to be used just like libevent, but with C++ style syntax sugar (or poison, depends on your point of view ;) and goodies. The main difference to libevent is you always have to instance a eventxx::dispatcher to get an event loop. There is no implicit global event loop. This adds just an extra line of code for single threaded applications and makes things much more simpler, so I hope nobody complains about it ;). See eventxx::dispatcher documentation for more details.
You can use use the same plain functions callbacks libevent use or the other kind of function objects (see Events section for details on event types).
eventxx uses Exceptions to report errors. All functions have exception specifications, so its easy to find out what to expect. See Exceptions section for more detail.
A timespec abstraction is provided as eventxx::time for convenient argument passing. Even more, its a timespec itself, with some convenient methods for accessing the attributes with pritier names. And even more, eventxx is such a direct mapping that all eventxx::events are libevent event structs too, so theoretically you can pass a eventxx::event to libevent C functions without much trouble. eventxx::dispatcher is the only class that is not derived from libevent struct (event_base) because this struct its not defined on the libevent header (just declared).
Maybe you shouldnt know this implementation details to keep the abstraction, but this is a basic design goal of this wrapper so there is not much chance that this changes in the future (but use this knowledge with care, you have been warned.
Enhancements:
- Uses event_base_free() by default since libevent 1.3b fixes the bug that caused the assertion.
- Minor documentation changes.