# Watcher callbacks

All watchers can be active(waiting for events) or inactive(paused). Only active watchers will have their callbacks invoked. All callbacks will be called with at least two arguments: `watcher` - the watcher, and `revents` a bitmask of received events.

Watcher callbacks are passed to the watcher constructors (the classes derived from EvWatcher - EvCheck::__construct(), EvChild::__construct() etc.). A watcher callback should match the following prototype:

callback( object `$watcher` = NULL , int `$revents` = NULL ): void

`watcher`

  The watcher instance(of a class extending EvWatcher ).

`revents`

  Watcher received events.

Each watcher type has its associated bit in `revents`, so one can use the same callback for multiple watchers. The event mask is named after the type, i.e. EvChild (or EvLoop::child()) sets `EV::CHILD`, EvPrepare (or EvLoop::prepare()) sets `Ev::PREPARE`, EvPeriodic (or EvLoop::periodic()) sets `Ev::PERIODIC` and so on, with the exception of I/O events (which can set both `Ev::READ` and `Ev::WRITE` bits).

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