Pre-empting

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As a wider concept, pre-empting often means an action attempting to either stall or prevent an anticipated event.

For example

• pre-empt a regular broadcast schedule to send special real-time news
• emergency vehicles can pre-empt traffic signals
• hold a press conference to pre-empt likely criticism
• a bunch of specific legal and financial examples [1]

In computer programming, pre-empting typically refers to pre-emptive multitasking, the ability to context-switch away from a running task without that task's cooperation and/or initiation. (...which is mainly contrasted with cooperative multitasking/scheduling[2], where only a task itself can yield control, if and when it wants to.)