18.7 Expand Tabs to Spaces

20200423

The expand command is used to expands tabs into spaces retaining the alignment.

$ cat mytabs.txt 
A simple    file    with
tabs to align   columns across
multiple    rows    

$ cat -T mytabs.txt 
A simple^Ifile^Iwith
tabs to align^Icolumns^Iacross
multiple^Irows^I

$ expand mytabs.txt 
A simple        file    with
tabs to align   columns across
multiple        rows    

$ expand mytabs.txt > myspaces.txt

$ cat -T myspaces.txt 
A simple        file    with
tabs to align   columns across
multiple        rows    

See https://www.putorius.net/expand-convert-tabs-to-spaces.html for more examples.

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