redhat man page for unbuffer

UNBUFFER(1)						      General Commands Manual						       UNBUFFER(1)

NAME
       unbuffer - unbuffer output

SYNOPSIS
       unbuffer program [ args ]

INTRODUCTION
       unbuffer  disables  the	output	buffering that occurs when program output is redirected.  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.

       You can disable this automatic buffering as follows:

	    unbuffer od -c /tmp/fifo | more

       When you have a pipeline, unbuffer must be applied to each element except the last (since that doesn't have its output redirected).   Exam-
       ple:

	       unbuffer p1 | unbuffer p2 | unbuffer p3 | p4

BUGS
       The man page is longer than the program.

SEE ALSO
       "Exploring Expect: A Tcl-Based Toolkit for Automating Interactive Programs" by Don Libes, O'Reilly and Associates, January 1995.

AUTHOR
       Don Libes, National Institute of Standards and Technology

								    1 June 1994 						       UNBUFFER(1)