[bityard]

Why would you want that?

All Unix text processing tools assume that every line in a text file ends in a newline. Otherwise, it's not a text file.

There's no such thing as a "trailing newline," there is only a line-terminating newline.

I've yet to hear a convincing argument why the last line should be an exception to that extremely long-standing and well understood convention.

[perching_aix]

> There's no such thing as a "trailing newline," there is only a line-terminating newline.

Is "line-terminating newline" a controlled / established term I'm unfamiliar with or am I right to hold deep contempt against you?

Because "trailing newline", contrary to what you claim, is 100% established terminology (in programming anyways), so I'd most definitely consider it "existing", and I find it actively puzzling that someone wouldn't.

[eqvinox]

A trailing newline to me is "\n\n" at the end of a file, i.e. a superfluous empty line. That doesn't seem to be what the root comment is referring to, though?

[perching_aix]

I'm referring to files ending with a \n, and I do not see why this wouldn't be a trailing newline. It's a newline... at the end.

[eqvinox]

In my head, a trailing newline is a newline, at the end, on its own, a blank line after the last line in a file… that's a file ending in \n\n (or more).

It hadn't even occurred to me until today that anything else could be meant :o

[oasisaimlessly]

"Trailing newline" isn't anymore of a special phrase than "leading whitespace" (or "leftmost banana").

[perching_aix]

That is also true, adding to the bafflement factor of it supposedly being "non-existent".