NodeJS poll phrase blocking logic

As mentioned in the NodeJS doc, in poll phrase, node will block when appropriate. This post will discuss the block conditions and why this phrase blocks as Node should perfom a non-blocking I/O operations.

There are several logics in libuv core.c

First is the uv_run function, which operates the process of entire event loop:

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int uv_run(uv_loop_t* loop, uv_run_mode mode) {
int timeout;
int r;
int ran_pending;

r = uv__loop_alive(loop);
if (!r)
uv__update_time(loop);

while (r != 0 && loop->stop_flag == 0) {
uv__update_time(loop);
uv__run_timers(loop);
ran_pending = uv__run_pending(loop);
uv__run_idle(loop);
uv__run_prepare(loop);

timeout = 0;
if ((mode == UV_RUN_ONCE && !ran_pending) || mode == UV_RUN_DEFAULT)
timeout = uv_backend_timeout(loop);

uv__io_poll(loop, timeout);
uv__run_check(loop);
uv__run_closing_handles(loop);

if (mode == UV_RUN_ONCE) {
/* UV_RUN_ONCE implies forward progress: at least one callback must have
* been invoked when it returns. uv__io_poll() can return without doing
* I/O (meaning: no callbacks) when its timeout expires - which means we
* have pending timers that satisfy the forward progress constraint.
*
* UV_RUN_NOWAIT makes no guarantees about progress so it's omitted from
* the check.
*/
uv__update_time(loop);
uv__run_timers(loop);
}

r = uv__loop_alive(loop);
if (mode == UV_RUN_ONCE || mode == UV_RUN_NOWAIT)
break;
}

/* The if statement lets gcc compile it to a conditional store. Avoids
* dirtying a cache line.
*/
if (loop->stop_flag != 0)
loop->stop_flag = 0;

return r;
}
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