From: Matthew Smillie <M.B.Smillie@...>
Date: 2006-07-27T18:01:53+09:00
Subject: Re: Blocks question

On Jul 27, 2006, at 9:46, Jon Leighton wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have written a script which sets up a new website on a server.
> Obviously this involves a number of steps so I have written a method
> which looks like so:
>
> def step(msg)
>   print msg + "... "
>   yield
>   puts "done"
> end
>
> The idea being that you write something like:
>
> step("Creating site directory") { [mkdir code here }
>
> This all works fine, except for one thing. I would like the "Creating
> site directory..." to show up *before* the yield takes place, and then
> the "done" would appear afterwards. Currently the whole "Creating site
> directory... done" appears only after the yield has completed, which
> might make the user think something has gone wrong with longer  
> steps. I
> don't understand why this happens, can anyone explain my options  
> please?

I can't reproduce this on my machine, but it sounds very much like  
it's being caused by buffered output.  This might work:

def step(msg)
   print msg + "..."
   STDOUT.flush
   yield
   puts "done"
end

matthew smillie.