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From: loo@mister-curious.sw.mcc.com (Joel Loo)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: tabs in vi
Message-ID: <2825@mister-curious.sw.mcc.com>
Date: 23 Aug 89 16:19:44 GMT
References: <7901@ardent.UUCP> <36790001@hpindwa.HP.COM> <12187@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU>
Reply-To: loo@mister-curious.sw.mcc.com (Joel Loo)
Organization: MCC, Austin, Texas
Lines: 17

Someone wrote (sorry forgot who):
>=> Is there a way to make it so that when ever I hit the TAB key
>=> in 'vi' that I get 4 spaces rather than an actual tab?  I would
>=> rather not have to run expand after running vi, as I would only
>=> want to do that if I actually changed the file.

This works on my Unix:

     :map! ^V<tab> ^V<sp>^V<sp>^V<sp>^V<sp>
       
Of course, to type in a ^V you will have to type ^V^V, making the command
to be actually:

     :map! ^V^V<tab> ^V^V<sp>^V^V<sp>^V^V<sp>^V^V<sp>

hope this helps [tm]
-Joel