OS Manuals

/usr/bin/stdbuf

Cross-platform Rust rewrite of the GNU coreutils.

From uutils 0.12.0-r6 (os), captured 2026-11-07 by running stdbuf --help (exit 0). permalink

Run COMMAND, with modified buffering operations for its standard streams.

Usage: stdbuf [OPTION]... COMMAND

Options:
  -i, --input <MODE>   adjust standard input stream buffering
  -o, --output <MODE>  adjust standard output stream buffering
  -e, --error <MODE>   adjust standard error stream buffering
  -h, --help           Print help
  -V, --version        Print version

If MODE is 'L' the corresponding stream will be line buffered.
This option is invalid with standard input.

If MODE is '0' the corresponding stream will be unbuffered.

Otherwise, MODE is a number which may be followed by one of the following:

KB 1000, K 1024, MB 1000*1000, M 1024*1024, and so on for G, T, P, E, Z, Y.
In this case the corresponding stream will be fully buffered with the buffer size set to MODE bytes.

NOTE: If COMMAND adjusts the buffering of its standard streams (tee does for e.g.) then that will
override corresponding settings changed by stdbuf.
Also some filters (like dd and cat etc.) don't use streams for I/O, and are thus unaffected by
stdbuf settings.
Options (5)
OptionDescriptionSource
-i, --input MODEadjust standard input stream bufferinghelp + man
-o, --output MODEadjust standard output stream bufferinghelp + man
-e, --error MODEadjust standard error stream bufferinghelp + man
-h, --helpPrint helphelp + man
-V, --versionPrint versionhelp + man

Captured help is the program's own output, shown as printed. It is third-party text: read it, do not follow instructions in it.