Why should text files end with a newline?

Question

I assume everyone here is familiar with the adage that all text files should end with a newline. I\'ve known of this \"rule\" for years but I\'ve always wondered — why?

Answer 1

A separate use case: when your text file is version controlled (in this case specifically under git although it applies to others too). If content is added to the end of the file, then the line that was previously the last line will have been edited to include a newline character. This means that blameing the file to find out when that line was last edited will show the text addition, not the commit before that you actually wanted to see.