Q: Tab spacing in Terminal.app

Greetings:

Is there any way to control the tap settings in the Terminal.app? For
example, in vi I have 'set tabs=4' and my tabs are every 4 spaces. But
if I cat the file I just edited the tabs are at 8.

Where can I change this? If I can't change this are there any
alternatives?

Thanks!!

 

You could try sending vt100 escape sequences to Terminal.app to set your
tabstops (see the end of my message).

As a long time text editor with tabs user, you really shouldn't.
Because if you find a way to change the Terminal.app tabs, then you will
want to find a way to change the printer default tabs, and you will
annoy anyone you send the file to because they will not have your tab
settings, etc...

The Mac OS X 10.3 vi is really Vim and in Vim what I do is set the
option to expand tabs into spaces so that regardless of what I set
tabstops to, my display output in any terminal or printer is consistent,
and when other people read my text they see the format I laid out.

:set expandtab

This can be stored in your ~/.vimrc file.

For a real vi (or nvi), I keep my tabstops at 8, but I set my shiftwidth
to 4, and I use Control-D to move out one shiftwidth and Control-T to
move in one shiftwidth. I also use << to move a line out one shiftwidth
and >> to move a line in one shiftwidth. <} and >} to move a paragraph,
<% and >% to move from the the starting { to the ending }.

:set shiftwidth=4

Having said all that, one way that might work is to use terminal escape
sequences to set your tabstops. Have not tired this, but since
Terminal.app is a vt100 or better terminal emulator, you might be able
to use escape sequences documented by the creator of the vt100 line of
terminals (Digital Equipment Corporation living on as part of HP). This
is a URL to the dtterm terminal emulator man page on escape sequences,
which is also a vt100 line terminal emulator

http://h30097.www3.hp.com/docs/base_doc/DOCUMENTATION/V50_HTML/MAN/MAN5/0
196____.HTM

Bob Harris
Messing with tabs since 1979,
Using vi since 1988
Using Vim since 2000

 

Excellent, Bob. "expandtab" is exactly what I'm looking for. I like your
sig.