pauseable

Pauseable is an adjective describing something that can be paused and later resumed. In technology, pauseability refers to temporarily halting a process or activity while preserving the ability to continue from where it left off. While not universally standardized, pauseable and pausable are common spellings in software documentation, with pausable often preferred in technical writing.

Common contexts include media playback, animations, and data processing. For example, a pauseable video player can stop playback without losing the current position, an animation library can freeze the animation at a frame, and a data-processing pipeline or task can pause its progress and resume later when resources or input become available.

Implementation typically involves capturing and restoring internal state. This may require checkpoints or serialization of relevant data, careful handling of I/O and external resources, and ensuring that pausing is safe and idempotent. The concept is related to, but distinct from, suspending or canceling a task; pausing generally preserves progress, while cancellation may discard it.

Related terms include pause, resume, suspend, and checkpoint. The exact semantics can vary by platform, language, and library, so developers should consult specific documentation to understand how pauseability is implemented and used in a given context.