Usage of sys.stdout.flush() method

What does sys.stdout.flush() do?

Solution 1:

Python's standard out is buffered (meaning that it collects some of the data "written" to standard out before it writes it to the terminal). Calling sys.stdout.flush() forces it to "flush" the buffer, meaning that it will write everything in the buffer to the terminal, even if normally it would wait before doing so.

Here's some good information about (un)buffered I/O and why it's useful:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_buffer
Buffered vs unbuffered IO

Solution 2:

Consider the following simple Python script:

import time
import sys

for i in range(5):
    print(i),
    #sys.stdout.flush()
    time.sleep(1)

This is designed to print one number every second for five seconds, but if you run it as it is now (depending on your default system buffering) you may not see any output until the script completes, and then all at once you will see 0 1 2 3 4 printed to the screen.

This is because the output is being buffered, and unless you flush sys.stdout after each print you won't see the output immediately. Remove the comment from the sys.stdout.flush() line to see the difference.