Does Python have sync?

Question

The sync man page says:

sync() causes all buffered modifications to file metadata and data to be written to the underlying file systems.

Does Python have a call to do this?

P.S. Not fsync, I see that.

Answer 1

Python 3.3 has os.sync, see the docs. The source confirms it is the same thing.

For Python 2 you can to make an external call to the system:

from subprocess import check_call
check_call(['sync'])

Answer 2

As said, Python 3.3 has the call - on Python 2.x, since it is a simple system call, requiring no data to be passed back and forth, you can use ctypes to make the call:

>>> import ctypes
>>> libc = ctypes.CDLL("libc.so.6")
>>> libc.sync()
0

Answer 3

Combining the two answers, I use the following at the top of my module:

if hasattr(os, 'sync'):
    sync = os.sync
else:
    import ctypes
    libc = ctypes.CDLL("libc.so.6")
    def sync():
        libc.sync()