biolocal:ShellFileEditing

From Wiki CEINGE

Every command described here can be easily obtained in a high level scripting language (php). The use of bash is preferrable when you can't or won't set up an entire programming environement to launch simple commands against a list of text files.

Delete last line from a file/s

To obtain a text of a file without last line, just execute:

cuttedfile=`sed '$d' filename`;

Now you just need to write the new text in the same file:

echo "$cuttedfile">filename;

If you want to execute the same operation on a list of files contained in the same directory:

for filename in `ls`; \
 do \
   cuttedfile=`sed '$d' $filename`; \
   echo "$cuttedfile">$filename; \
 done;

Please, pay attention to the double quotes used to echo the $cuttedfile variable; they are needed to ensure the content of the text file is entirely kept (carrige returns, tabs and so on).