With buffering on, output is only actually printed to the screen whenever a line finishes. So when you leave the \n in, everything is fine, but if you remove it, everything is buffered until the very end. 
for (1..10) { print '.'; sleep 1; }
$| = 1; # Turn off buffering
for (1..10) { print '.'; sleep 1; }

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In reply to Re: What is the wrong with the sleep function ? by TedPride
in thread What is the wrong with the sleep function ? by vennirajan

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