I agree with comment OP; you haven’t solved the problem. The number of empty lines in a file that shouldn’t be parsed shouldn’t affect your code. If it is, then you need to stop parsing files that shouldn’t be parsed. For example, if this arbitrary file is being included (totally valid assumption given your debugging), what’s to prevent a malicious payload from being included or executed?
I genuinely have no idea how a random text file, much less a dot file, gets parsed in a PHP project. It feels like there’s no attempt at file validation which is really fucking important for server-side code.
That’s fair! You can create an issue now with a branch in your repo as a proof of concept. Don’t wait to figure it out!
I am really curious tho and poking around myself.