Activity for Lover of Structure‭

Type	On...	Excerpt	Status	Date
Comment	Post #288915	That would already be very much welcomed (but of course the more the better). (more)	—	10 months ago
Comment	Post #288915	Well, actually, I think we two are on the same page in that we'd be happier if Unix/Linux text files were defined more permissively, but then it's hard (and pointless) to argue with an established POSIX definition. (Also I am trying very strongly to avoid the kind of heated discussion that took place... (more)	—	10 months ago
Comment	Post #288915	Actually, I don't think the rule is dumb, it's more like that Unix aficionados feel strongly that text files "must" end in newlines. To a layman it's more like, "I heard that you mustn't forget a newline at the end of a text file, because some commands will misprocess data with a missing final newlin... (more)	—	10 months ago
Comment	Post #288915	Well, some commenters argued that the original short version of my question was unanswerable because you'd have to check every implementation of every Unix/Linux command, because, after all, implementations are free to do whatever they want with malformed input. So I basically added justification for... (more)	—	10 months ago
Comment	Post #288915	My question is verbose because it was first asked on *Stack Exchange: Unix & Linux*, where it was closed. (more)	—	10 months ago
Edit	Post #288915	Initial revision	—	10 months ago
Question	—	What unexpected things can happen if a user runs commands expecting a text file on input lacking a file-final newline? It is often taught that in Unix/Linux text files should end with newline characters. The reason given (orally) to me by various sources was that "some commands (such as `wc`) assume or require a newline at the end of a text file". (Other commands I am aware of are: `sed`, `read`, `cron`/`crontab`, an... (more)	—	10 months ago