C# StreamWriter - When is stream physically written to file?

Question

In my app, I'm using a StreamWriter to stream data to a file. Are any bytes actually written to the file before the Close() method is called? If the answer is no, is this true no matter how large the stream is?

Randy

Answer 1

The StreamWriter has an internal buffer, and once that buffer is full, it will get flushed to disk. You can force it to flush to disk at any time by calling Flush()

You can specify how big of a buffer you want in the constructors of StreamWriters if you wish.