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bashlinetail

How do I get the last non-empty line of a file using tail in Bash?

How do I get the last non-empty line using tail under Bash shell?

For example, my_file.txt looks like this:

hello
hola
bonjour
(empty line)
(empty line)

Obviously, if I do tail -n 1 my_file.txt I will get an empty line. In my case I want to get bonjour. How do I do that?

Solution

  • You can use Awk:

    awk '/./{line=$0} END{print line}' my_file.txt

    This solution has the advantage of using just one tool.