Perl Cookbook

Flushing Output

Problem

When printing to a filehandle, output doesn’t appear immediately. This is a problem in CGI scripts running on some programmer-hostile web servers where, if the web server sees warnings from Perl before it sees the (buffered) output of your script, it sends the browser an uninformative 500 Server Error. These buffering problems arise with concurrent access to files by multiple programs and when talking with devices or sockets.

Solution

Disable buffering by setting the per-filehandle variable $| to a true value, customarily 1:

$old_fh = select(OUTPUT_HANDLE);
$| = 1;
select($old_fh);

Or, if you don’t mind the expense, disable it by calling the autoflush method from the IO modules:

use IO::Handle;
OUTPUT_HANDLE->autoflush(1);

Discussion

In most stdio implementations, buffering varies with the type of output device. Disk files are block buffered, often with a buffer size of more than 2K. Pipes and sockets are often buffered with a buffer size between ½ and 2K. Serial devices, including terminals, modems, mice, and joysticks, are normally line-buffered; stdio sends the entire line out only when it gets the newline.

Perl’s print function does not support truly unbuffered output—a physical write for each individual character. Instead, it supports command buffering, in which one physical write is made after every separate output command. This isn’t as hard on your system as no buffering at all, and it still gets the output where you want it, when you want it.

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