66 The \fBSDL_Event\fR union is the core to all event handling is SDL, its probably the most important structure after \fBSDL_Surface\fR\&. \fBSDL_Event\fR is a union of all event structures used in SDL, using it is a simple matter of knowing which union member relates to which event \fBtype\fR\&.
115 Reading events from the event queue is done with either \fI\fBSDL_PollEvent\fP\fR or \fI\fBSDL_PeepEvents\fP\fR\&. We\&'ll use \fBSDL_PollEvent\fP and step through an example\&.
123 \fBSDL_PollEvent\fP removes the next event from the event queue, if there are no events on the queue it returns \fB0\fR otherwise it returns \fB1\fR\&. We use a \fBwhile\fP loop to process each event in turn\&.
129 The \fBSDL_PollEvent\fP function take a pointer to an \fBSDL_Event\fR structure that is to be filled with event information\&. We know that if \fBSDL_PollEvent\fP removes an event from the queue then the event information will be placed in our \fBtest_event\fR structure, but we also know that the \fItype\fP of event will be placed in the \fBtype\fR member of \fBtest_event\fR\&. So to handle each event \fBtype\fR seperately we use a \fBswitch\fP statement\&.
135 We need to know what kind of events we\&'re looking for \fIand\fP the event \fBtype\fR\&'s of those events\&. So lets assume we want to detect where the user is moving the mouse pointer within our application\&. We look through our event types and notice that \fBSDL_MOUSEMOTION\fP is, more than likely, the event we\&'re looking for\&. A little \fImore\fR research tells use that \fBSDL_MOUSEMOTION\fP events are handled within the \fI\fBSDL_MouseMotionEvent\fR\fR structure which is the \fBmotion\fR member of \fBSDL_Event\fR\&. We can check for the \fBSDL_MOUSEMOTION\fP event \fBtype\fR within our \fBswitch\fP statement like so:
160 It is also possible to push events onto the event queue and so use it as a two-way communication path\&. Both \fI\fBSDL_PushEvent\fP\fR and \fI\fBSDL_PeepEvents\fP\fR allow you to place events onto the event queue\&. This is usually used to place a \fBSDL_USEREVENT\fP on the event queue, however you could use it to post fake input events if you wished\&. Creating your own events is a simple matter of choosing the event type you want, setting the \fBtype\fR member and filling the appropriate member structure with information\&.
