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Re: [PATCH] Improved string writing


From: Kevin Ryde
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Improved string writing
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 08:10:21 +1000
User-agent: Gnus/5.110003 (No Gnus v0.3) Emacs/21.3 (gnu/linux)

address@hidden (Ludovic Courtès) writes:
>
> Actually, I hadn't considered using it because `stdout' is line-buffered
> by default, at least on GNU/Linux

Guile doesn't actually use stdio.

> (SUSv2 states that it shall be "fully-buffered" by default [1, 2]).

Fully buffered on a non-tty.  On a tty you're right the tradition is
line buffered output.

> But it looks like Guile's file ports are unbuffered by default.

Ah yes, on a tty.  (scm_init_standard_ports in init.c.)

> Maybe _this_ should be changed?

Alas I think that'd be an incompatible change, programs printing a
prompt or progress info probably depend on immediate output as the
default.

(In C stdio a prompt is handled by stdout automatically flushing when
stdin is read, but there's no such interlock in guile, I think.)

It'd be good to add a bit to the manual somewhere about this.  I just
realized I struck something similar to what you're talking about only
the other day, running a guile subprocess from emacs.  I fiddled about
with strings to ensure decent size chunks got written for performance.
(Emacs uses a pseudo-tty to talk to subprocesses, rather than a pipe.)

> It looks better to call `scm_lfwrite ()' once than `scm_putc ()' for
> each character, especially since `scm_putc ()' calls `scm_lfwrite ()'

Yes, but I would limit that to what can be done easily locally, like
two adjacent putcs turned into one write.  I'd leave general sort of
buffering to the port or an application.

> `scm_lfwrite ()' does this so Guile code doesn't have to care about it.

Yep, format.scm started as portable to systems without builtin output
column tracking, I think.  I thought of changing to use the port as a
simplification, I guess it's also an optimization.




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