Why does printf not flush after the call unless a newline is in the format string?

The stdout stream is buffered, so will only display what's in the buffer after it reaches a newline (or when it's told to). You have a few options to print immediately:

Print to stderr instead using fprintf:

fprintf(stderr, "I will be printed immediately");

Flush stdout whenever you need it to using fflush:

printf("Buffered, will be flushed");
fflush(stdout); // Will now print everything in the stdout buffer

Edit: From Andy Ross's comment below, you can also disable buffering on stdout by using setbuf:

setbuf(stdout, NULL);

Posted in: C faq