what are some example case of files needing newline at end?

what are some example case of files needing newline at end?

[Xah Lee]

what are some examples of files that requires a newline by itself at
the end?

Detail:

recently i'm coding elisp to process a input file line by line. Each
line is expected to have text.
I ran into error at the last line because the file has a empty line,
and i noticed that it is automatically added, due to mode-require-
final-newline being true.

So, i'm wondering, what kinda files actually require newline at the
end? and if it is still so today?

  Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/

☄

Re: what are some example case of files needing newline at end?

[Andy Stewart]

Hi Xah,

I think crontab file need newline at end of file.
If have not newline at end of crontab file.

crontab can't work.

  -- Andy

Xah Lee <xahlee@gmail.com> writes:

> what are some examples of files that requires a newline by itself at
> the end?
>
> Detail:
>
> recently i'm coding elisp to process a input file line by line. Each
> line is expected to have text.
> I ran into error at the last line because the file has a empty line,
> and i noticed that it is automatically added, due to mode-require-
> final-newline being true.
>
> So, i'm wondering, what kinda files actually require newline at the
> end? and if it is still so today?
>
>   Xah
> ∑ http://xahlee.org/
>
> ☄

Re: what are some example case of files needing newline at end?

[Jean-Marc Bourguet]

Xah Lee <xahlee@gmail.com> writes:

> what are some examples of files that requires a newline by itself at
> the end?

Under Posix, the newline is a line *terminator* not a line *separator*, so
a Posix text file must be terminated by a newline.

> recently i'm coding elisp to process a input file line by line. Each
> line is expected to have text.
> I ran into error at the last line because the file has a empty line,
> and i noticed that it is automatically added, due to mode-require-
> final-newline being true.

A file terminated by an empty line will have two newlines at its end under
Posix.

Yours,

-- 
Jean-Marc

Re: what are some example case of files needing newline at end?

[Chris F.A. Johnson]

On 2008-12-06, Xah Lee wrote:
> what are some examples of files that requires a newline by itself at
> the end?
>
> Detail:
>
> recently i'm coding elisp to process a input file line by line. Each
> line is expected to have text.
> I ran into error at the last line because the file has a empty line,
> and i noticed that it is automatically added, due to mode-require-
> final-newline being true.

    I have never seen a blank line added. If there is no newline at
    the end of the file, one will be added. That is not a blank line.
    a blank line at the end would mean two newlines at the end of the
    file.

> So, i'm wondering, what kinda files actually require newline at the
> end? and if it is still so today?

    A final newline is required by many UNIX utilities. The POSIX
    definition of a text file is one that ends with a newline.


-- 
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   Shell Scripting Recipes:     |  My code in this post, if any,
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