Pollable event
An event indicating an I/O resource is ready (readable or writable), as observed via polling APIs like poll or epoll.
Definition
A pollable event is an event that indicates an I/O resource is ready for some operation.
The most common readiness signals are:
- readable (you can read without blocking)
- writable (you can write without blocking)
Where it appears
Pollable events are observed through polling APIs and event loops.
This is the model behind interfaces like select, poll, epoll, kqueue, and many runtime event loops.
Signals like SIGPOLL or SIGIO can also be used for certain async I/O notification setups.