Recently, I wrote a utility that required the final line of text in a file to terminate with a special code. The code had to sit at the end of a line of text, not on a blank line. What I discovered is that many text files end with one or more blank lines.
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\nThe blank lines, essentially one newline character following another, are a valid part of any text file. In fact, I recall from decades ago online debates over whether text files (source code or even email messages) should end with an extra blank line “just in case.”<\/p>\n
A text file is a text file. It need not end with a newline character at all. Yet, as I was writing my utility, I discovered that some text files didn’t end with a newline, some ended with a single newline, many with two (the last paragraph followed by a blank line), and a handful with multiple blank lines.<\/p>\n
The task for this month’s Exercise is to write code that processes a text file, outputting all its contents minus any trailing blank lines. A final newline character is okay. No terminating newline is okay. But when the file tails with two or more newlines, they must not appear in the output.<\/p>\n
To test the code, I’m supplying four sample files:<\/p>\n
getty-0.txt<\/a> Each of these files terminates with a different number of newlines: zero, one, and three for the first three. The file For your solution to work properly, the output of the first three files looks like this:<\/p>\n For the liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all<\/p>\n men are created equal.<\/code><\/p>\n No blank line follows the last line in each example.<\/p>\n I can think of several solutions for this Exercise. In fact, my own solution is different than the one I used for the utility I wrote that spawned this idea. Click here<\/a> to view my solution. Before then, please try this Exercise on your own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Most text files end with a blank line. One is enough! When a text file terminates with several blank lines, you can write a utility to remove the excess. Continue reading
\ngetty-1.txt<\/a>
\ngetty-3.txt<\/a>
\ngetty-mix.txt<\/a><\/p>\ngetty-mix.txt<\/code> has multiple blank lines internally as well as at the end, just to test your code.<\/p>\nFour score and seven years ago our fathers brought
\nforth on this continent a new nation, conceived in
\nliberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all
\nmen are created equal.<\/code><\/p>\ngetty-mix.txt<\/code> file, output looks like this:<\/p>\nFour score and seven years ago our fathers brought
\nforth on this continent a new nation, conceived in<\/p>\n