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When does unbuffer disable the output buffering?
unbuffer disables the output buffering that occurs when program output is redirected from non-interactive programs. For example, suppose you are watching the output from a fifo by running it through od and then more. You will not see anything until a full page of output has been produced.
How to turn off buffering in the shell?
You can use the unbuffer command (which comes as part of the expect package), e.g. unbuffer connects to long_running_command via a pseudoterminal (pty), which makes the system treat it as an interactive process, therefore not using the 4-kiB buffering in the pipeline that is the likely cause of the delay.
What does unbuffer do to the output of a FIFO?
unbuffer disables the output buffering that occurs when program output is redirected from non-interactive programs. For example, suppose you are watching the output from a fifo by running it through od and then more. od -c /tmp/fifo | more You will not see anything until a full page of output has been produced.
How to turn off line buffering in Linux?
Another way to skin this cat is to use the stdbuf program, which is part of the GNU Coreutils (FreeBSD also has its own one). This turns off buffering completely for input, output and error. For some applications, line buffering may be more suitable for performance reasons:
How to display the unbuffer manual in Linux?
Command to display unbuffer manual in Linux: $ man 1 unbuffer unbuffer disables the output buffering that occurs when program output is redirected from non-interactive programs. For example, suppose you are watching the output from a fifo by running it through od and then more.
What happens to unbuffer when it encounters an EOF?
For expediency, unbuffer simply exits when it encounters an EOF from either its input or process2. In order to have a version of unbuffer that worked in all situations, an oracle would be necessary. If you want an application-specific solution, workarounds or hand-coded Expect may be more suitable.