eklitzke / libevent

Event notification library

0. BUILDING AND INSTALLATION (Briefly)

Autoconf

 $ ./configure
 $ make
 $ make verify   # (optional)
 $ sudo make install

CMake (General)

The following Libevent specific CMake variables are as follows (the values being the default).

# Type of the library to build (SHARED or STATIC)
# Default is: SHARED for MSVC, otherwise BOTH
EVENT__LIBRARY_TYPE:STRING=DEFAULT

# Installation directory for CMake files
EVENT_INSTALL_CMAKE_DIR:PATH=lib/cmake/libevent

# Enable running gcov to get a test coverage report (only works with
# GCC/CLang). Make sure to enable -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug as well.
EVENT__COVERAGE:BOOL=OFF

# Defines if Libevent should build without the benchmark executables
EVENT__DISABLE_BENCHMARK:BOOL=OFF

# Define if Libevent should build without support for a debug mode
EVENT__DISABLE_DEBUG_MODE:BOOL=OFF

# Define if Libevent should not allow replacing the mm functions
EVENT__DISABLE_MM_REPLACEMENT:BOOL=OFF

# Define if Libevent should build without support for OpenSSL encryption
EVENT__DISABLE_OPENSSL:BOOL=OFF

# Disable the regress tests
EVENT__DISABLE_REGRESS:BOOL=OFF

# Disable sample files
EVENT__DISABLE_SAMPLES:BOOL=OFF

# If tests should be compiled or not
EVENT__DISABLE_TESTS:BOOL=OFF

# Define if Libevent should not be compiled with thread support
EVENT__DISABLE_THREAD_SUPPORT:BOOL=OFF

# Enables verbose debugging
EVENT__ENABLE_VERBOSE_DEBUG:BOOL=OFF

# When cross compiling, forces running a test program that verifies that Kqueue
# works with pipes. Note that this requires you to manually run the test program
# on the the cross compilation target to verify that it works. See CMake
# documentation for try_run for more details
EVENT__FORCE_KQUEUE_CHECK:BOOL=OFF

More variables can be found by running cmake -LAH <sourcedir_path>

CMake (Windows)

Install CMake: https://www.cmake.org

 $ md build && cd build
 $ cmake -G "Visual Studio 10" ..   # Or whatever generator you want to use cmake --help for a list.
 $ start libevent.sln

CMake (Unix)

 $ mkdir build && cd build
 $ cmake ..     # Default to Unix Makefiles.
 $ make
 $ make verify  # (optional)

1. BUILDING AND INSTALLATION (In Depth)

Autoconf

To build Libevent, type

 $ ./configure && make

(If you got Libevent from the git repository, you will first need to run the included "autogen.sh" script in order to generate the configure script.)

You can run the regression tests by running

 $ make verify

Install as root via

 $ make install

Before reporting any problems, please run the regression tests.

To enable low-level tracing, build the library as:

 $ CFLAGS=-DUSE_DEBUG ./configure [...]

Standard configure flags should work. In particular, see:

 --disable-shared          Only build static libraries.
 --prefix                  Install all files relative to this directory.

The configure script also supports the following flags:

 --enable-gcc-warnings     Enable extra compiler checking with GCC.
 --disable-malloc-replacement
                           Don't let applications replace our memory
                           management functions.
 --disable-openssl         Disable support for OpenSSL encryption.
 --disable-thread-support  Don't support multithreaded environments.

CMake (Windows)

(Note that autoconf is currently the most mature and supported build environment for Libevent; the CMake instructions here are new and experimental, though they should be solid. We hope that CMake will still be supported in future versions of Libevent, and will try to make sure that happens.)

First of all install https://www.cmake.org.

To build Libevent using Microsoft Visual studio open the "Visual Studio Command prompt" and type:

$ cd <libevent source dir>
$ mkdir build && cd build
$ cmake -G "Visual Studio 10" ..   # Or whatever generator you want to use cmake --help for a list.
$ start libevent.sln

In the above, the ".." refers to the dir containing the Libevent source code. You can build multiple versions (with different compile time settings) from the same source tree by creating other build directories.

It is highly recommended to build "out of source" when using CMake instead of "in source" like the normal behaviour of autoconf for this reason.

The "NMake Makefiles" CMake generator can be used to build entirely via the command line.

To get a list of settings available for the project you can type:

$ cmake -LH ..

GUI

CMake also provides a GUI that lets you specify the source directory and output (binary) directory that the build should be placed in.

2. USEFUL LINKS:

For the latest released version of Libevent, see the official website at http://libevent.org/ .

There's a pretty good work-in-progress manual up at http://www.wangafu.net/~nickm/libevent-book/ .

For the latest development versions of Libevent, access our Git repository via

$ git clone https://github.com/libevent/libevent.git

You can browse the git repository online at:

https://github.com/libevent/libevent

To report bugs, issues, or ask for new features:

Patches: https://github.com/libevent/libevent/pulls

OK, those are not really patches. You fork, modify, and hit the "Create Pull Request" button. You can still submit normal git patches via the mailing list.

Bugs, Features [RFC], and Issues: https://github.com/libevent/libevent/issues

Or you can do it via the mailing list.

There's also a libevent-users mailing list for talking about Libevent use and development:

http://archives.seul.org/libevent/users/

3. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The following people have helped with suggestions, ideas, code or fixing bugs.