Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!killer!vector!rpp386!jfh
From: jfh@rpp386.UUCP (John F. Haugh II)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Stdio buffering question
Message-ID: <2622@rpp386.UUCP>
Date: 11 Jun 88 03:06:10 GMT
References: <16124@brl-adm.ARPA>
Reply-To: jfh@rpp386.UUCP (The Beach Bum)
Organization: Big "D" Home for Wayward Hackers
Lines: 6

the reason printf buffers when writing to a non-terminal is because it
is cheaper (cpu-wise) to wait until an entire buffer is full.  if you
really want to see the output immediately regardless of the output
destination, you must use fflush.  this is a very common situation
when using fprintf or printf for debugging a program which core dumps.

- john.