The only language I know of where the presence of whitespace on blank lines matters is make(1). Even there, it's subtle. It's okay to have (using "cat -e" syntax) foo : bar$ command$ $ command$ But there's a difference between foo : bar$ $ which specifies an empty command and will therefore not use a default rule, and foo : bar$ $ which does not specify any command and so will use a default rule if one exists. (Of course, you can also get [ \t]\n inside an arbitrary binary file, too.) - : send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html