By default, whenever a pending event becomes active (because its file descriptor is ready to read or write, or because its timeout expires), it becomes non-pending right before its callback is executed. Thus, to make the event pending again one may call Event::add() on it again from inside the callback function.
  If the
  Event::PERSIST
  flag is set on an event, however, the event is
  persistent
  . This means that event remains pending even when its callback is activated.
  Event::del()
  method can be called to make it non-pending.
 
  The timeout on a persistent event resets whenever the event's callback runs.
  Thus, if one has an event with flags
  Event::READ
  |
  Event::PERSIST
  and a timeout of five seconds, the event will become active:
 
Whenever the socket or file descriptor is ready for reading.
Whenever five seconds have passed since the event last became active.
See also » Fast portable non-blocking network programming with Libevent, About Event Persistence