STDBUF(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' then corresponding stream will be line buffered. This option is invalid with standard input.

If MODE is `0' then 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 e.g.) then that will override corresponding settings changed 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
Report stdbuf bugs to bug-coreutils@gnu.org
GNU coreutils home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>

COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO
The full documentation for stdbuf is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and stdbuf programs are properly installed at your site, the command

    info coreutils 'stdbuf invocation'

should give you access to the complete manual.