That empty line at end of line seems was addes on purpose by @c_schmitz here to enhance excel compatibility
https://github.com/LimeSurvey/LimeSurvey/commit/1174354b35d7b0480f66dde23be6da08bc0366d9

I believe it is better to not remove them.
Of course, feel free to reopen it if you feel this should be further explored.

Thanks

@gabrieljenik

Not exactly true. I did not add that line.
I think the line can be removed, but need to test with R, because according to the comments it is the only reason it exists "for R compatibility".

Oops, my bad... I was saying that following the commit message :)

Who can test with R?

@f_funke ?

I see that empty line in the data file. But when importing the data in R this has no effect. The empty lines doe not result in a separate (empty) cases. However, removing the empty line makes no difference for the import in R.

To be honest, I don't understand the problem of the empty line. The empty line inflates the file size by 4 bytes - bytes, not kB or mB ;-)

Could @Jmantysalo please add more information about the relevance?

Could @Jmantysalo please add more information about the relevance?

I noticed this when doing some automatic prosessing (can't remember what exactly). I wrote a small code assuming that every line of the file contains a response. Of course I can start my script with 'egrep .' or 'tac | tail -n +2 | tac' now when I know this. Hence I reported this, but put "trivial" as severity. No hard feelings if this will be closed without fix.

The empty line might was added to have an separator when importing multiple CSV into one data table.
If it was a workaround for an old issue in R it will be hard to track back.
The mess around CR and LF on different platforms come to my mind.
Windows uses CR and LF characters to terminate lines. Unix,Linux,OSX only LF. The old Mac used CR.

OK, then we can remove that line.

https://github.com/LimeSurvey/LimeSurvey/pull/2942

To be honest, I don't understand the problem of the empty line. The empty line inflates the file size by 4 bytes - bytes, not kB or mB ;-)

A lot of import system broke with empty line. For example : export with EM code : you get a file near a VV file.
Import it as VV (set first line) : you have an empty response.

Is this as expected?

image.png (19,540 bytes)   

image.png (19,540 bytes)   

@Jmantysalo can you confirm the picture above is as expected?

Thanks!

can you confirm the picture above is as expected?

I think so. The editor probably shows line number 4, even when line 4 has no content.

@Jmantysalo Can you test with R?

Tested and yes, it worked. (I.e. after source("survey_123456_R_syntax_file.R") everything seems fine with str(data) -command.)

Tested by @Jmantysalo

Fix committed to master branch: http://bugs.limesurvey.org/plugin.php?page=Source/view&id=34381