> perhaps another switch for what you like would be best?
> (most?) other systems "iostat -x" seem to always print a header.

i guess you want to handle -x as it produces multi lines for each output.
right?  if so, how about making it conditional on that?

YAMAMOTO Takashi

Index: iostat.c
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/src/usr.sbin/iostat/iostat.c,v
retrieving revision 1.46
diff -u -p -r1.46 iostat.c
--- iostat.c	8 Jan 2006 08:47:16 -0000	1.46
+++ iostat.c	8 Jan 2006 08:52:55 -0000
@@ -217,9 +217,7 @@ main(int argc, char *argv[])
 	(void)signal(SIGCONT, sig_header);
 
 	for (hdrcnt = 1;;) {
-		if (do_header ||
-		    ((hdrcnt -= lines) <= 0) ||
-		    ISSET(todo, SHOW_STATS_X)) {
+		if (do_header || lines > 1 || (hdrcnt -= lines) <= 0) {
 			do_header = 0;
 			header();
 			hdrcnt = winlines - 4;