re: epoll support in libevent-0.7

[Dan Kegel <dkegel@ixiacom.com>]

Niels Provos <provos () citi ! umich ! edu> wrote:

> I just released a new version of libevent that supports Linux new
> epoll mechanism; see
> 
>   http://www.monkey.org/~provos/libevent/
> 
> The page contains some performance comparisons for different event
> notification mechanisms.

Very cool.  This will probably be quite useful for many users.

BTW, Niels should perhaps mention that only the new,
level-triggered version of sys_epoll is supported.

> The library supports platform independent high performance network
> applications.  It chooses the fastest notification mechansims
> supported by the operating system.

That may not be *quite* true.  Davide and I feel the edge-triggered
version of sys_epoll can be slightly faster than the level-triggered version.
Niels disagrees, but presumably a benchmark could be arranged to
settle the question.  Of course, after Davide and I win the
argument :-), Niels will say "but the level-triggered version is easier to use",
and he'll be mostly right.

I'm stuck in /dev/epoll-land for a while, but one of these days,
maybe I'll do that benchmark.

- Dan