# Poll (Unix)

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System call

**poll** is a [POSIX](/source/POSIX) system call to wait for one or more [file descriptors](/source/File_descriptor) to become ready for use.[1]

On the [BSD](/source/BSD) descendants and [macOS](/source/MacOS), it has been largely superseded by [kqueue](/source/Kqueue) in high performance applications.[2] On [Linux](/source/Linux_kernel), it has been superseded by ppoll and [epoll](/source/Epoll).[2]

## See also

- [Computer programming portal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Computer_programming)
- [Free and open-source software portal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Free_and_open-source_software)

- [kqueue](/source/Kqueue)

- [epoll](/source/Epoll)

- [inotify](/source/Inotify)

- [select](/source/Select_(Unix))

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-n_1-0)** Charles M. Hannum; The [NetBSD](/source/NetBSD) Foundation, Inc. (1998). ["poll, pollts — synchronous I/O multiplexing"](http://bxr.su/n/lib/libc/sys/poll.2). *BSD Cross Reference*. [NetBSD](/source/NetBSD).

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-nginx_2-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-nginx_2-1) ["Connection processing methods"](http://nginx.org/en/docs/events.html). *[nginx](/source/Nginx).org*.

## External links

- [poll](https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9799919799/functions/poll.html) – System Interfaces Reference, [The Single UNIX Specification](/source/Single_Unix_Specification), Version 5 from [The Open Group](/source/The_Open_Group)

- [man-pages for poll(2) in FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and DragonFly BSD](http://mdoc.su/-/poll.2)

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Poll (Unix)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_(Unix)) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_(Unix)?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.