<constant>POLLIN</constant>, <constant>POLLOUT</constant>, … events, or negative on error.
</para>
- <para><function>sd_bus_get_timeout()</function> returns the timeout in µs to pass to
- <function>poll()</function> or a similar call when waiting for events on the specified bus
- connection. The returned timeout may be zero, in which case a subsequent I/O polling call
- should be invoked in non-blocking mode. The returned timeout may be
- <constant>UINT64_MAX</constant> in which case the I/O polling call may block indefinitely,
- without any applied timeout. Note that the returned timeout should be considered only a
- maximum sleeping time. It is permissible (and even expected) that shorter timeouts are used by
- the calling program, in case other event sources are polled in the same event loop. Note that
- the returned time-value is absolute, based of <constant>CLOCK_MONOTONIC</constant> and specified
- in microseconds. When converting this value in order to pass it as third argument to
- <function>poll()</function> (which expects relative milliseconds), care should be taken to convert
- to a relative time and use a division that rounds up to ensure the I/O polling operation
- doesn't sleep for shorter than necessary, which might result in unintended busy looping
- (alternatively, use
- <citerefentry project='man-pages'><refentrytitle>ppoll</refentrytitle><manvolnum>2</manvolnum></citerefentry>
- instead of plain <function>poll()</function>, which understands timeouts with nano-second
- granularity).</para>
+ <para><function>sd_bus_get_timeout()</function> returns the <emphasis>absolute</emphasis> time-out in µs,
+ from which the relative time-out to pass to <function>poll()</function> (or a similar call) can be
+ derived, when waiting for events on the specified bus connection. The returned timeout may be zero, in
+ which case a subsequent I/O polling call should be invoked in non-blocking mode. The returned timeout may
+ be <constant>UINT64_MAX</constant> in which case the I/O polling call may block indefinitely, without any
+ applied timeout. Note that the returned timeout should be considered only a maximum sleeping time. It is
+ permissible (and even expected) that shorter timeouts are used by the calling program, in case other
+ event sources are polled in the same event loop. Note that the returned time-value is absolute, based of
+ <constant>CLOCK_MONOTONIC</constant> and specified in microseconds. When converting this value in order
+ to pass it as third argument to <function>poll()</function> (which expects relative milliseconds), care
+ should be taken to convert to a relative time and use a division that rounds up to ensure the I/O polling
+ operation doesn't sleep for shorter than necessary, which might result in unintended busy looping
+ (alternatively, use <citerefentry
+ project='man-pages'><refentrytitle>ppoll</refentrytitle><manvolnum>2</manvolnum></citerefentry> instead
+ of plain <function>poll()</function>, which understands timeouts with nano-second granularity).</para>
<para>These three functions are useful to hook up a bus connection object with an external or
manual event loop involving <function>poll()</function> or a similar I/O polling call. Before