Re: [Haskell-cafe] Fwd: Default stdout buffering of child processof createProcess

On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 2:43 PM, Elliot Robinson < elliot.robinson@argiopetech.com> wrote:

On Sat, Aug 2, 2014 at 3:54 AM, Donn Cave wrote:

...

Handles are for buffered I/O.

If this is the case, why is NoBuffering provided? Why does the documentation for Handle explicitly mention non-existent and zero-length buffers? If Handles are the standard cross-platform interface to buffered file IO, what is the standard cross-platform interface to unbuffered IO (output, specifically, since input is technically always at least 1 byte buffered)?

Handles provide a non-buffered interface, but often if you truly need unbuffered I/O you will be better suited by the platform's primitive operations; for which abstractions that enable some kind of reasonably platform independent interface may well cancel out the advantages of unbuffered I/O for those cases. -- brandon s allbery kf8nh sine nomine associates allbery.b@gmail.com ballbery@sinenomine.net unix, openafs, kerberos, infrastructure, xmonad http://sinenomine.net