I have a large file that's come through without newlines. When I run a word count on it (wc) it lists 0 lines. I know it's got the data there - I can see it. But I need to break it up into individual records.

The record length is 241 characters and there should be over 16 million records. I first tried using the command 'fold' and it seemed to work, but when I 'wc' the resulting file it comes up with 1 less record than what it should come up with. And when I divide the total number of bytes by what the record length should be with the newline, I don't come up with and even number...so I know it's missing something somewhere (but only 1 byte - jeez!).

Any suggestions? Thanks, in advance for your help!

If it's only 1 record less than it should be, could it be that the very last line doesn't end with a newline character?

I think that is the case. Is there a way to put one after the last line? I'd like the record count to match the total number of records and right now it's showing up as 1 shy of the total.

It's very clunky, but if all you're missing is the final newline (1 byte), then the following works on my box:
The result is a blank line at the end of the file and a filesize that is increased by 1 byte - but it's not an elegant way to solve the problem.

Thank you, Steve. That seems to have done the trick.

I appreciate your help! ~Anne

No problem - I'm glad it's giving the results you wanted

You can use fold witch insert a newline caracter at 80 (use fold -w 132 toto.txt > toto2.txt if you want to cut at 132 char.)