Struct std::io::BufWriter1.0.0[−][src]

pub struct BufWriter<W: Write> { /* fields omitted */ }

Wraps a writer and buffers its output.

It can be excessively inefficient to work directly with something that implements Write. For example, every call to write on TcpStream results in a system call. A BufWriter<W> keeps an in-memory buffer of data and writes it to an underlying writer in large, infrequent batches.

BufWriter<W> can improve the speed of programs that make small and repeated write calls to the same file or network socket. It does not help when writing very large amounts at once, or writing just one or a few times. It also provides no advantage when writing to a destination that is in memory, like a Vec<u8>.

It is critical to call flush before BufWriter<W> is dropped. Though dropping will attempt to flush the contents of the buffer, any errors that happen in the process of dropping will be ignored. Calling flush ensures that the buffer is empty and thus dropping will not even attempt file operations.

Examples

Let’s write the numbers one through ten to a TcpStream:

use std::io::prelude::*;
use std::net::TcpStream;

let mut stream = TcpStream::connect("127.0.0.1:34254").unwrap();

for i in 0..10 {
    stream.write(&[i+1]).unwrap();
}

Because we’re not buffering, we write each one in turn, incurring the overhead of a system call per byte written. We can fix this with a BufWriter<W>:

use std::io::prelude::*;
use std::io::BufWriter;
use std::net::TcpStream;

let mut stream = BufWriter::new(TcpStream::connect("127.0.0.1:34254").unwrap());

for i in 0..10 {
    stream.write(&[i+1]).unwrap();
}
stream.flush().unwrap();

By wrapping the stream with a BufWriter<W>, these ten writes are all grouped together by the buffer and will all be written out in one system call when the stream is flushed.