output caught in memory

[melguin]

There is a script that I am trying to troubleshoot that sometimes waits to write a line previously printed to the filehandle until the filehandle is closed.

At the end of the script it does this:

print FILE (scalar localtime)." ## Exit\n";
close FILE;

which results in a line previously previously printed to be written to the file after the Exit line. However, if I do this:

print FILE (scalar localtime)." ## Exit\n";
exit();
close FILE;

everything is fine. It's probably not a good idea to exit before the close, so I'm looking for another way to get the same results.

many thanks great holders of wisdom.

[Wookie]

The easiest way to make sure the write occurs is to write it in two lines - and set your write buffers to instant write.

So try this:

$|=1; # $| is undef by default - which means use buffering - define it
+ as 1 - and it instantly writes.
print FILE scalar localtime;
print FILE " ## Exit\n";
close FILE;

Alternatively, you can try to build the entire entry into a variable first - then write it. So:

$close = localtime;
print FILE "$close ## Exit\n";
close FILE;

I hope this helps :).

Update: Remove quotes around scalar localtime in first code block (thanks MZSanford)

---

game(Wookie,opponent) eq 'Wookie' ? undef $problem : remove_limbs(arms,opponent);

[jeffa]

Wrong answer - move along, nothing to see here . . .

You can try END:

sub END {
    close FILE;
}

Jeff

R-R-R--R-R-R--R-R-R--R-R-R--R-R-R--
L-L--L-L--L-L--L-L--L-L--L-L--L-L--

[dragonchild]

Or, if you used IO::File, just do something like:

use IO::File;
my $output = IO::File->new(">&STDOUT");
autoflush $out;

print $out "Some String\n";

$out->close;

[melguin]

great.

I had looked at the $| option and had declared it equal to 1 at the beginning of the script, but it didn't do anything (perhaps because I was using select to change the default output before printing?).

What finally worked was adding the $| = 1 between the selects. So, I went from this:

                                # Change the output to logfile
                                $filehandle = select LOG_FILENAME;

                                eval $menu[$var];

                                # Restore the filehandle
                                select $filehandle;

to this:

                                # Change the output to logfile
                                $filehandle = select LOG_FILENAME;

                                $| = 1;
                                eval $menu[$var];

                                # Restore the filehandle
                                select $filehandle;

Many thanks to all.