From: Stefano Crocco <stefano.crocco@...>
Date: 2008-05-31T21:50:04+09:00
Subject: Re: getting standard error and output from ruby script in real time

On Friday 30 May 2008, Dave Bass wrote:
> Stefano Crocco wrote:
> > of KDE. I'd be glad if someone could give
> > me a hint on this, so that at least
> > I can know whether I have to look for
> > documentation about ruby or about
> > KDE.
>
> It's to do with buffering. Buffering takes place within Ruby (I think)
> but also in the operating system. Stderr is usually unbuffered whereas
> stdout is usually buffered. I.e. the output is accumulated in a memory
> buffer until it reaches a certain size, then the block is flushed to the
> output stream. This is a lot more efficient that outputting it
> character-by-character to the output device.
>
> In my experience (various languages and OSes), buffering can cause
> problems that are difficult or impossible to resolve.

Thanks for the information. I think I'll look at the source code of some tool 
which does what I want and see how it works.

Stefano