setbuf

Controls stream buffering.

void setbuf( FILE *stream, char *buffer );

Routine Required Header Compatibility
setbuf <stdio.h> ANSI, Win 95, Win NT

For additional compatibility information, see Compatibility in the Introduction.

Libraries

LIBC.LIB Single thread static library, retail version
LIBCMT.LIB Multithread static library, retail version
MSVCRT.LIB Import library for MSVCRT.DLL, retail version

Return Value

None

Parameters

stream

Pointer to FILE structure

buffer

User-allocated buffer

Remarks

The setbuf function controls buffering for stream. The stream argument must refer to an open file that has not been read or written. If the buffer argument is NULL, the stream is unbuffered. If not, the buffer must point to a character array of length BUFSIZ, where BUFSIZ is the buffer size as defined in STDIO.H. The user-specified buffer, instead of the default system-allocated buffer for the given stream, is used for I/O buffering. The stderr stream is unbuffered by default, but you can use setbuf to assign buffers to stderr.

setbuf has been replaced by setvbuf, which is the preferred routine for new code. setbuf is retained for compatibility with existing code.

Example

/* SETBUF.C: This program first opens files named DATA1 and
 * DATA2. Then it uses setbuf to give DATA1 a user-assigned
 * buffer and to change DATA2 so that it has no buffer.
 */

#include <stdio.h>

void main( void )
{
   char buf[BUFSIZ];
   FILE *stream1, *stream2;

   if( ((stream1 = fopen( "data1", "a" )) != NULL) &&
       ((stream2 = fopen( "data2", "w" )) != NULL) )
   {
      /* "stream1" uses user-assigned buffer: */
      setbuf( stream1, buf );
      printf( "stream1 set to user-defined buffer at: %Fp\n", buf );

      /* "stream2" is unbuffered              */
      setbuf( stream2, NULL );
      printf( "stream2 buffering disabled\n" );
      _fcloseall();
   }
}

Output

stream1 set to user-defined buffer at: 0013FDA0
stream2 buffering disabled

Stream I/O Routines

See Also   fclose, fflush, fopen, setvbuf