Linux - check if there is an empty line at the end of a file

linux eof carriage-return
Black picture Black · Jan 22, 2016 · Viewed 16.9k times · Source

NOTE: this question used to be worded differently, using “with/out newline” instead of “with/out empty line”

I have two files, one with an empty line and one without:

File: text_without_empty_line

$root@kali:/home#cat text_without_empty_line
This is a Testfile
This file does not contain an empty line at the end
$root@kali:/home#

File: text_with_empty_line

$root@kali:/home#cat text_with_empty_line
This is a Testfile
This file does contain an empty line at the end

$root@kali:/home#

Is there a command or function to check if a file has an empty line at the end? I already found this solution, but it does not work for me. (EDIT: IGNORE: A solution with preg_match and PHP would be fine as well.)

Answer

Camila Masetti picture Camila Masetti · Nov 15, 2017

Just type:

cat -e nameofyourfile

If there is a newline it will end with $ symbol. If not, it will end with a % symbol.

Related questions

Can read(2) return zero when not at EOF?

According to the man page for read(2), it only returns zero when EOF is reached. However, It appears this is incorrect and that it may sometimes return zero, perhaps because the file is not ready to be read yet? Should …

Read More
fseek on a position beyond EOF does not trigger EOF using feof, how come?

I'm reading data from a file to memory that is opened with: FILE *f = fopen(path, "rb"); Before I start copying bytes from the file I seek to a start position using: /** * Goes to the given position of the given …

Read More
How do I find all files containing specific text on Linux?

I'm trying to find a way to scan my entire Linux system for all files containing a specific string of text. Just to clarify, I'm looking for text within the file, not in the file name. When I was looking …

Read More