You can use the setbuf function after the specified file is opened but before any I/O operations are performed. If buffer is a NULL pointer, then the call is equivalent to a call to setvbuf with the same file_ptr, a NULL buffer pointer, a buffering type of _IONBF (no buffering), and a buffer size of 0. If buffer is not a NULL pointer, then the call is equivalent to a call to setvbuf with the same file_ptr, the same buffer pointer, a buffering type of _IOFBF, and a buffer size given by the value BUFSIZ (defined in <stdio.h>). Therefore, use BUFSIZ to allocate the buffer argument used in the call to setbuf. For example: #include <stdio.h> . . . char my_buf[BUFSIZ]; . . . setbuf(stdout, my_buf); . . . User programs must not depend on the contents of buffer once I/O has been performed on the stream. The C RTL might or might not use buffer for any given I/O operation. The setbuf function originally allowed programmers to substitute larger buffers in place of the system default buffers in obsolete versions of UNIX. The large default buffer sizes in modern implementations of C make the use of this function unnecessary most of the time. The setbuf function is retained in the ANSI C standard for compatibility with old programs. New programs should use setvbuf instead, because it allows the programmer to bind the buffer size at run time instead of compile time, and it returns a result value that can be tested.