Originální popis anglicky: 
poll - wait for some event on a file descriptor
Návod, kniha: Linux Programmer's Manual
#include <sys/poll.h>
 
int poll(struct pollfd *ufds, unsigned int nfds,
  int timeout);
poll is a variation on the theme of 
select. It specifies an array
  of 
nfds structures of type
 
        struct pollfd {
                int fd;           /* file descriptor */
                short events;     /* requested events */
                short revents;    /* returned events */
        };
and a 
timeout in milliseconds. A negative value means infinite timeout.
  The field 
fd contains a file descriptor for an open file. The field
  
events is an input parameter, a bitmask specifying the events the
  application is interested in. The field 
revents is an output parameter,
  filled by the kernel with the events that actually occurred, either of the
  type requested, or of one of the types 
POLLERR or 
POLLHUP or
  
POLLNVAL. (These three bits are meaningless in the 
events field,
  and will be set in the 
revents field whenever the corresponding
  condition is true.) If none of the events requested (and no error) has
  occurred for any of the file descriptors, the kernel waits for 
timeout
  milliseconds for one of these events to occur. The following possible bits in
  these masks are defined in <sys/poll.h>
 
    #define POLLIN      0x0001    /* There is data to read */
    #define POLLPRI     0x0002    /* There is urgent data to read */
    #define POLLOUT     0x0004    /* Writing now will not block */
    #define POLLERR     0x0008    /* Error condition */
    #define POLLHUP     0x0010    /* Hung up */
    #define POLLNVAL    0x0020    /* Invalid request: fd not open */
When compiling XPG4.2 source one also has
 
#ifdef _XOPEN_SOURCE
    #define POLLRDNORM  0x0040    /* Normal data may be read */
    #define POLLRDBAND  0x0080    /* Priority data may be read */
    #define POLLWRNORM  0x0100    /* Writing now will not block */
    #define POLLWRBAND  0x0200    /* Priority data may be written */
#endif
Finally, Linux knows about
 
#ifdef _GNU_SOURCE
    #define POLLMSG     0x0400
#endif
On success, a positive number is returned, where the number returned is the
  number of structures which have non-zero 
revents fields (in other
  words, those descriptors with events or errors reported). A value of 0
  indicates that the call timed out and no file descriptors have been selected.
  On error, -1 is returned, and 
errno is set appropriately.
  - EBADF
- An invalid file descriptor was given in one of the
    sets.
  - EFAULT
- The array given as argument was not contained in the
      calling program's address space.
  - EINTR
- A signal occurred before any requested event.
  - EINVAL
- The nfds value exceeds the RLIMIT_NOFILE value.
  - ENOMEM
- There was no space to allocate file descriptor tables.
See the BUGS section of 
select(2).
XPG4-UNIX.
The poll() systemcall was introduced in Linux 2.1.23. The poll() library call
  was introduced in libc 5.4.28 (and provides emulation using select if your
  kernel does not have a poll syscall).
select(2), 
select_tut(2)