rust io_error ai_generated true

Error: Os { code: 32, kind: BrokenPipe, message: "Broken pipe" }

ID: rust/rust-io-broken-pipe

Also available as: JSON · Markdown
87%Fix Rate
89%Confidence
50Evidence
2023-01-01First Seen

Version Compatibility

VersionStatusIntroducedDeprecatedNotes
1 active — — —

Root Cause

The read end of a pipe or socket was closed while the program tried to write. Common with piped stdout (e.g., program | head).

generic

Workarounds

  1. 90% success Handle BrokenPipe errors gracefully in write operations 
    use std::io::{self, Write};
if let Err(e) = writeln!(stdout, "{}", data) {
    if e.kind() == io::ErrorKind::BrokenPipe {
        std::process::exit(0); // Normal exit for piped commands
    }
    return Err(e.into());
}

    Sources: https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/io/enum.ErrorKind.html

  2. 85% success Use BufWriter with explicit error handling for stdout 
    let stdout = io::stdout();
let mut writer = io::BufWriter::new(stdout.lock());
// Flush and handle BrokenPipe at the end

    Sources: https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/io/struct.BufWriter.html

Dead Ends

Common approaches that don't work:

  1. Ignore SIGPIPE signal globally 70% fail

    Rust already ignores SIGPIPE by default; the issue is not handling the resulting io::Error

Error Chain

Leads to:
Preceded by:
Frequently confused with: