←back to thread

CRLF is obsolete and should be abolished

(fossil-scm.org)
422 points km | 7 comments | 13 Oct 24 19:16 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
Show context
perching_aix ◴[13 Oct 24 20:09 UTC] No.41831129[source]▶
Well, at least the title is honest. Straight up asking people to break standards out of sheer conviction is a new one for me personally, but it's definitely one of the attitudes of all time, so maybe it's just me being green.

Can we ask for the typical *nix text editors to disobey the POSIX standard of a text file next, so that I don't need to use hex editing to get trailing newlines off the end of files?

replies(4): >>41831233 #>>41831275 #>>41831592 #>>41833146 #
1. bityard ◴[14 Oct 24 00:56 UTC] No.41833146[source]▶
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.

replies(1): >>41833701 #
2. perching_aix ◴[14 Oct 24 02:34 UTC] No.41833701[source]▶
> 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.

replies(2): >>41834339 #>>41835372 #
3. oasisaimlessly ◴[14 Oct 24 04:59 UTC] No.41834339[source]▶
"Trailing newline" isn't anymore of a special phrase than "leading whitespace" (or "leftmost banana").
replies(1): >>41834730 #
4. perching_aix ◴[14 Oct 24 06:20 UTC] No.41834730{3}[source]▶
That is also true, adding to the bafflement factor of it supposedly being "non-existent".
5. eqvinox ◴[14 Oct 24 08:15 UTC] No.41835372[source]▶
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?
replies(1): >>41836361 #
6. perching_aix ◴[14 Oct 24 11:04 UTC] No.41836361{3}[source]▶
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.
replies(1): >>41842084 #
7. eqvinox ◴[14 Oct 24 21:12 UTC] No.41842084{4}[source]▶
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