$txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'w', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_w });

And returns this transaction object. The C<fh_ready_w> callback gets
called as soon as the event loop detects that the socket is ready for
writing.

The C<fh_ready_w> method makes the socket blocking again, writes the
request data and replaces the watcher by a read watcher (waiting for reply
data). The actual code is more complicated, but that doesn't matter for
this example:

   fcntl $txn->{fh}, F_SETFL, 0;
   syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request}
      or die "connection or write error";
   $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r });

Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the
result and signals any possible waiters that the request has finished:

   sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf};

   if (end-of-file or data complete) {
     $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf};
     $txn->{finished}->send;
     $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback
   }

The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the
request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the
data:

   $txn->{finished}->recv;
   return $txn->{result};

The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions)
that occurred during request processing. The C<result> method detects
whether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object)
and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other
problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result, not in a
random callback.

All of this enables the following usage styles:

1. Blocking:

   my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url);

2. Blocking, but running in parallel:

   my @datas = map $_->result,
                  map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_),
                     @urls;

Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know
anything about events.

3a. Event-based in a main program, using any supported event module:

   use EV;

   $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
      my $txn = shift;
      my $data = $txn->result;
      ...
   });

   EV::loop;

3b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too:

   use AnyEvent;

   my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar;

   $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
      ...
      $quit->send;
   });

   $quit->recv;


=head1 BENCHMARKS

To give you an idea of the performance and overheads that AnyEvent adds
over the event loops themselves and to give you an impression of the speed
of various event loops I prepared some benchmarks.

=head2 BENCHMARKING ANYEVENT OVERHEAD

Here is a benchmark of various supported event models used natively and
through AnyEvent. The benchmark creates a lot of timers (with a zero
timeout) and I/O watchers (watching STDOUT, a pty, to become writable,
which it is), lets them fire exactly once and destroys them again.

Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench> in the AnyEvent
distribution.

=head3 Explanation of the columns