R function to get the number of empty lines in a file

file_number_of_empty_lines.R

# count empty lines in a file
numberOfEmptyLines <- function(fname) {
  if(!file.exists(fname)) {
    stop(paste("Cannot read file ", fname, sep = " "))
  }
  as.integer(strsplit(try(system(paste("grep -cP '^$'", fname, sep = " "), intern = TRUE)), " +")[[1]][1])
}