From etxmesa@eos.ericsson.se (Michael Salmon)
Subject: Re: Q: Tab size in shell
Reply-To: etxmesa@eos.ericsson.se (Michael Salmon)
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1992 08:53:11 GMT

In article <1992Jun5.065506.27336@nuscc.nus.sg>, ccechk@nuscc.nus.sg (Heng Kek) writes:
|> How does one set the tab size for programs like 'cat', 'more'
|> etc?  I edited a table using 'vi' whose tabstop setting is 2
|> (i.e. tabstop=2).  When I 'more' the file containing the table,
|> the format is screwed up because the tabs expand to 8 spaces or
|> something.  
|> 
|> I've gone thru the man pages for 'stty' and tried some stuff but
|> met with no success.  Anyone know how to hack this?  I'm on
|> ULTRIX 4.2 with vt100 term.
|> 
|> Kek

try piping your file through expand.

-- 

Michael Salmon

#include	<standard.disclaimer>
#include	<witty.saying>
#include	<fancy.pseudo.graphics>

Ericsson Telecom AB
Stockholm


From nh@cbnewsg.cb.att.com (nicholas.hounsome)
Subject: Re: damn tabs
Date: 6 Oct 92 07:39:48 GMT

>From article <1992Oct6.040531.25139@cronkite.ocis.temple.edu>, by ray@astro.ocis.temple.edu (Ray Lauff):
> Hello
>    I hate the way vi places tabs in the file instead of spaces.
> Don't get me wrong - the Autoindent feature is very spiffy -- 
> but I hate the <tab> characters it leaves behind.  
> 
>    Right now I use the Unix "expand" command to remove all the
> tabs, but it is a tedious process.  Is there a way to request
> vi to replace the tabs with spaces before it saves the file?
> 
>     Any help appreciated.  Thanks in advance.
> 
> Ray.
> ray@astro.temple.edu

set tabstop=1000

This will handle autoindent and initial 'tabbing' with ^T but of course
you must never touch the tab key. To get around this type

map! ^V^I ^V ^V ^V ^V ^V 

i.e. map tab to however may spaces you want -(be careful with your ^Vs
here)

Of course this is not proper tabbing so you may just want to map it to 
one space. 

I never understand why people object to tabs apart from when perverts 
decide to treat them as other than every 8th position. If it is just
that you want smaller indentation then the trick is to set shiftwidth
and 'tab' in with ^T instead of TAB - To my mind this is realy clever
because it produces your indentation with the minimum possible 
number of TABs and spaces.

Nick Hounsome


From hansm@wsinti06.info.win.tue.nl (Hans Mulder)
Subject: Re: TABs in vi
Date: 27 May 1993 19:58:05 +0200

In <1993May27.094810.724@philce.ce.philips.nl> i323856@indus.cad-sg.ce.philips.nl ( DEWENDRA SHASTRI     ) writes:
>Dear Netters,
>I want to use the auto-indent feature of vi but it should not put TABs
>for indenting. Is there any setting by which this can be done. Can I
>override TAB with spaces ? If I press TAB key ^I character should not
>be put, instead spaces should be used. Can this be done ?

If you don't want any TAB characters in the file, you can :set tabstop=200
or so.  This makes TAB characters show as ridiculous amounts of whitespace
and makes the autoindent feature use ^I characters only if you indent past
column 200.

You'd probably also want t