Buffering control in python?

[Fernando Pérez]

I know that using -u will turn buffering off for everything in python. But is 
there a good reason for the lack of a way to turn buffering off from _inside_ 
a script? It's a bit nonsensical --at least from a user's perspective-- that 
something which can be done at the command line so easily isn't available 
inside the language itself. I don't want to use #!/usr/bin/python -u because 
of its portability problems.

In Perl each stream can be set to unbuffered via a simple 

STDOUT->autoflush(1);

Any reason why something like sys.stdout.autoflush(1) wouldn't be a good 
thing? I hate having to put sys.stdout.flush() calls all over the place when 
I need unbuffered output, when a stateful approach would be far cleaner. It 
would be also better than a blanket '-u' switch, since one could turn 
buffering off only for those streams that need it, and only in the places 
where it's needed.

Any comments from the cognoscenti?

Thanks,

f.