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I am using Screen like this:

screen -L -dm -S session1 -c "./game_server -options"

to wrap around game servers. I log their output to a file and can send them input with:

screen -r session1 -p0 -X "stuff \"this into input^M\""

The timeout between log file flushes can be specified in the configuration file (10 seconds in my case).

The problem I have is that I can't force screen to flush output to the logfile. For example, after I send a "status" command to a game server, the game server prints some information, but it takes at least 10 seconds to add that to the log file.

I have tried sending:

screen -r session1 -p0 -X "logfile flush 1"

But it doesn't react to that. I've also tried flush 0 with no luck.

I wouldn't want to always log with a timeout of 1 second; it's only really needed after receiving a command. Note that I'm paranoid about performance here because the session is running a game server after all.

How can I force screen to flush output to the logfile? Is there a way to do what I need (log output to file and send commands to input) other than with screen, maybe with a FIFO?

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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Try this:

screen -r session1 -X colon "logfile flush 1^M"

logfile flush 1 isn't actually a screen command, but colon is. The next thing you pass is the argument to it which has to be quoted and the ^M at the end should actually be a Ctrl-M. Ctrl-V followed by Ctrl-M will generally do the trick for entering an actual Ctrl-M.

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  • Thank you very much. Also, I was having problems with Ctrl-V Ctrl-M: it did print ^M in the command line, but then simply printed ^M in the screen window. Might have been the quotes. I ended up using this: screen ... -X stuff "$(printf '%b' 'this into input\015')".
    – Gipsy King
    Oct 19, 2010 at 12:49
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I had the exact same need as you. Logfile flush is a valid command to send to screen - however, it doesn't need to be quoted, and you can also set it to 0 for instant flushing.

Change your line to 

screen -r session1 -p0 -X logfile flush 0

Make sure to change it back when you are done reading from the log file though

screen -r session1 -p0 -X logfile flush 10

The default is 10 seconds, but you can set it to whatever you think is appropriate.

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