c:\@Work\Perl>perl -wMstrict -e "{ local $| = 1; ;; for my $n (reverse 1 .. 5, '(unbuffered)') { sleep 1; print qq{$n }; } } ;; for my $s ('(buffered)', 'Blast', 'Off', 'Now', qq{\n}) { sleep 1; print qq{$s }; } " (unbuffered) 5 4 3 2 1 (buffered) Blast Off Now