Why is stdout buffering?

Question

I am trying to learn the libuv api and wrote the following test:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <uv.h>

void timer_cb(uv_timer_t* timer) {
    int* i = timer->data;
    --*i;
    if(*i == 0) {
       uv_timer_stop(timer);
    }
    printf("timer %d\n", *i);
    //fflush(stdout);
}

int main() {
    uv_loop_t* loop = uv_default_loop();
    uv_timer_t* timer = malloc(sizeof(uv_timer_t));
    uv_timer_init(loop, timer);
    int i = 5;
    timer->data = &i;
    uv_timer_start(timer, timer_cb, 1000, 2000);

    uv_run(loop, UV_RUN_DEFAULT);

    printf("Now quitting.\n");
    uv_close(timer, 0);
    uv_loop_close(loop);

    return 0;
}

When run it, no output is displayed until the program finishes running, and then all the output is displayed at once. If I uncomment the fflush line it works as expected, writing every 2 seconds.

Can someone please explain this to me? Why is stdout not flushed after the newline, as is explained here and in other places? Why do I need tomanually flush it?

Answer 1

Stream buffering is implementation-defined.

Per 7.21.3 Files, paragraph 3 of the C Standard:

When a stream is unbuffered, characters are intended to appear from the source or at the destination as soon as possible. Otherwise characters may be accumulated and transmitted to or from the host environment as a block. When a stream is fully buffered, characters are intended to be transmitted to or from the host environment as a block when a buffer is filled. When a stream is line buffered, characters are intended to be transmitted to or from the host environment as a block when a new-line character is encountered. Furthermore, characters are intended to be transmitted as a block to the host environment when a buffer is filled, when input is requested on an unbuffered stream, or when input is requested on a line buffered stream that requires the transmission of characters from the host environment. Support for these characteristics is implementation-defined, and may be affected via the setbuf and setvbuf functions.

The type of buffering is dependent on your implementation, and your implementation apparently isn't line-buffering in your example.