select

[M. Warner Losh]

In message: <363446479.20080103213223 at EnderUNIX.org>
            Metin KAYA <metin at EnderUNIX.org> writes:
:    Yes Rick, I'm asking this "indefinitely" issue. Is there anything
:    that handle this NULL situation a signal, or etc.? How does Linux or
:    FreeBSD behave?
: 
: > On Thu, Jan 03, 2008 at 08:52:48PM +0200, Metin KAYA wrote:
: >> 
: >>   How select(2) will behave if I give the "utimeout" parameter as
: >>   NULL?
: 
: > According to the man page:
: 
: >      If timeout is not a null pointer, it specifies the maximum interval to
: >      wait for the selection to complete.  System activity can lengthen the
: >      interval by an indeterminate amount.
: 
: >      If timeout is a null pointer, the select blocks indefinitely.
: 
: >      To effect a poll, the timeout argument should not be a null pointer, but
: >      it should point to a zero-valued timeval structure.
: 

Indefinitely means "it won't return until there's an error or data"

Warner