> > Have you used a hex editor to really see what the file contains? > > od -ha filename > > will dump the contents of the file in hex with the ascii. > > You can check the file before editing and after to really see what the > contents are. > > -- > Scot L. Harris > webid@xxxxxxxxxx > I just ran the command you mentioned. In the file where I get an empty line, I get the following after the last record: nl nul Here's the end of that file: 0002420 6148 0a6d 6957 6c6c 6169 206d 6148 7272 H a m nl W i l l i a m sp H a r r 0002440 7369 6e6f 000a i s o n nl nul 0002445 But in the file where there's no trailing blank line (the one that I edited with mc) at the end I get nothing (here's the end of the output) 0000120 676c 0a61 6550 6574 0a72 6553 6e61 530a l g a nl P e t e r nl S e a n nl S 0000140 6574 6576 t e v e 0000144