trailing blank line in a text file

[Craig White]

On Tue, 2004-07-20 at 18:39, Olga wrote:
> > On Tue, 20 Jul 2004, Alex White wrote:
> >
> >> > Can anybody tell me what is going on? Why do I get the trailing blank
> >> line.
> >> >
> >> > Thank you.
> >> >
> >> > Olga
> >>
> >> What are you using to edit the files in question? I know that
> >> in FC2 and I think FC1, emacs asks you when you edit a file if
> >> you want a blank line inserted at the end. Could this be what
> >            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >> you're seeing?
> >
> > Not a blank line, a linefeed at the end of the last line.  vi, on the
> > other hand, always ends lines with a linefeed.  Some programs that read a
> > line at a time will break if the last line does not end with a linefeed.
> >
> > --
> > 		Matthew Saltzman
> 
> No in vi and nano I do not see anything. But in gedit I see the following
> (for example)
> 
> 1 Mike
> 2 John
> 3 Adam
> 4
> 
> The above is an example of what a file looks like with lines numbered.
> (numbers are not actually part of the file). I want the file to be only 3
> lines long (as an example); however, what I get is 4 lines where line 4 is
> an empty line. I can eliminate only using mc (F4). In nano, vim, vi it is
> invisible, but in gedit (gui editor) it shows what I displayed above. I
> can backspace after 4, it bring me to Adam, but when I save the file and
> reopen it, the output is exactly the same as I am showing now (empty line
> 4 stays).
> 
> What is the difference between a new lien \n and a line feed?
----
in Unix/Linux, a \n is the same as a line feed. Windows terminates lines
with a CR and Mac has both CR & LF

It is customary for Unix/Linux text files to end with a line feed and
thus, most editors will simply add one for you.

It seems that the newer versions of emacs offer to add a line feed to
the end of a text document when you close it if it isn't already there
(a Y/N question). vi is of course an industrial strength editor and I
would bet big money that there is a configuration option to turn it off
- and probably many other editors have that option as well.

Also know that you could probably create a little shell script (and /or
bash function) to chomp the last LF from a file - info bash (look at
chomp)

Craig