trailing blank line in a text file

[Olga]

> On Tue, 2004-07-20 at 19:25, Robert Locke wrote:
>> On Tue, 2004-07-20 at 21:39, Olga wrote:
>> > 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).
>> >
>>
>> Let's try a different approach....
>>
>> After you save the file in whichever editor, can we confirm that it
>> actually has the "four lines" or really just has "three lines"?
>>
>> How about running "wc -l filename" and see how many lines it reports...
>> This will help to confirm for you whether the file truly has the blank
>> line, or is just a visual construct of the editor.
> ----
> You have a classic half full / half empty paradigm going here.
>
> The point is that a large number of editors will add a LF to the end of
> the file when it saves it. Thus, it doesn't put anything on the '4th'
> line in this example, it only makes sure that line 3 ends with a LF
> character. Whether you want to say that this file has 4 lines or 3 lines
> is really a subjective matter. It definitely has 3 lines, each of them
> ending with a LF character.
>
> Craig
>
Yes, I understand that. But what I want is for it to be 3 lines, because
the programs that I have that process those files will need to be changed
if I consider the file to be 4 lines long. And I was hoping it would be
easier for me to figure out how to eliminate trailing blank lines rather
than edit the programming code for it to work.