stdbuf(1) — Linux manual pages

Linux manual pages	Section 1

Name

stdbuf — Run COMMAND, with modified buffering operations for its standard streams.

Synopsis

stdbuf OPTION... COMMAND

DESCRIPTION

Run COMMAND, with modified buffering operations for its standard streams.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

−i, −−input=MODE: adjust standard input stream buffering
−o, −−output=MODE: adjust standard output stream buffering
−e, −−error=MODE: adjust standard error stream buffering
−−help: display this help and exit
−−version: output version information and exit

If MODE is 'L' the corresponding stream will be line buffered. This option is invalid with standard input.

If MODE is '0' the corresponding stream will be unbuffered.

Otherwise MODE is a number which may be followed by one of the following: KB 1000, K 1024, MB 1000*1000, M 1024*1024, and so on for G, T, P, E, Z, Y. In this case the corresponding stream will be fully buffered with the buffer size set to MODE bytes.

	Note
	If COMMAND adjusts the buffering of its standard streams ('tee' does for example) then that will override corresponding changes by 'stdbuf'. Also some filters (like 'dd' and 'cat' etc.) don't use streams for I/O, and are thus unaffected by 'stdbuf' settings.

EXAMPLES

tail -f access.log | stdbuf -oL cut -d ' ' -f1 | uniq

This will immedidately display unique entries from access.log

BUGS

On GLIBC platforms, specifying a buffer size, i.e., using fully buffered mode will result in undefined operation.

AUTHOR

Written by Padraig Brady.

REPORTING BUGS

GNU coreutils online help: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>

Report stdbuf translation bugs to <http://translationproject.org/team/>